From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
A pro-Segun Oni group, the Ekiti Build Back Better (EBBB), says it has uncovered a criminal, immoral and unethical plan of the Ekiti All Progressives Congress (APC) in collaboration with its national headquarters and alleged connivance of some compromised staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to hack the systems of the commission in a bid to change the election results in favour of its governorship candidate, Mr Biodun Oyebanji.
“This is in clear view of the inevitable fact that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Asiwaju Segun Oni, is in a distant lead in all the nooks and crannies of the state.”
To this end, the group said it was informing the INEC to take the necessary precautions to avert its system from being hacked by the APC, adding that the party had “already hired computer experts very skilful in hacking into systems to illegally break into the INEC computer systems and impersonate legitimate INEC staff who have access to the data and manipulate the election results transmitted electronically from the polling units directly to collation system in favour of the APC.”
According to a press statement made available by Idowu Adelusi, the spokesman of EBBB, to journalists in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday, the group alleged that the APC, through its survey, realised that Oyebanji could not win the election, if it is truly transparent, and decided that it had to use any illegitimate means to rig the election.
According to Adelusi, all observers of Ekiti State politics had unanimously concluded that in the history of politics in the state there had never been any near unanimity of Ekiti people’s voice about the choice of a candidate during an election, except during the First Republic when they overwhelmingly voted for Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
“Today, Adelusi continued, “Asiwaju Olusegun Adebayo Oni, the candidate of the SDP, has come to be seen as the Awolowo of the Ekiti people.
“Residents, ethnic groups, the old and the youth, as well as people of all classes, religions and creeds, follow Oni.
“We challenge every fair-minded observer to conduct a survey across Ekiti to confirm or refute the stated assertion.
“We invite ECOWAS, AU and the EU communities to conduct a pre-election survey to authenticate or prove this view otherwise.
“This is what troubles the APC at the state and national levels. It wants to win the election at all costs, as it is sourcing and procuring any means available to rig the election.
“Every stratum of the Ekiti population has rejected the APC and whatever it stands for or represents. The government representatives are being booed and called names even under their roofs.
“Ekiti people, who have suffered from the almost eight years of misgovernment, corrupt and debt-ridden administration, are tired of them.
“They have now seen an alternative in the reputable, trusted and tested former governor of the state, Asiwaju Segun Oni, with whom Ekiti people have openly pitched their tent.
“Having seen this and convinced itself of a clear victory for Oni and his political party, the APC and its co-travellers have started to fish in troubled waters.
“The ruling party has planned, among other things, to cause mayhem on election day, because their government controlled all the security infrastructures in the country.
“They want to interfere with the early movement of election materials.
“Their plan includes shooting practically to scare voters away from pooling units in areas where they are not popular.
“They have also planned to embark on vote-buying and kidnapping of key members of the SDP before the election day.
“They have directed INEC officials to starve the SDP-controlled areas of electoral sensitive materials. They want to use their thugs, who are mainly drivers and garage boys in police and military uniforms, to harass and flog identified SDP members and drive them away from the polling booths on election day.
“They plan to disrupt the conduct of the election where they think they have lost; and now, they are planning hacking into the result after the election.
“All these are their orchestrated plans to rig the forthcoming election because they are sure SDP and Segun Oni are the preferred party and candidate for governor on the election day.”
The EBBB said it used this opportunity to call on the heads of all security forces and agents in Nigeria to “hold the APC and government in Ekiti State responsible for all infringements on the electoral laws in Ekiti before, during, and after the June 18 poll.
“In particular, we are giving this as an advance notice to the National Security Adviser to the President, the Chairman of INEC, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Defense Staff, Commander of the NSCDC, Director-General DSS, and the Inspector General of Police.
“We have it as sound and accurate information in Ekiti State that the head of a Special Police Squad has been set apart for a special operation to deal with opposition members in the coming election.
“He was deployed to Ekiti East Local Government Area during a bye-election sometime ago, where people, including a policewoman, were killed and the election was aborted till today.
“The case is still in court in Ekiti today.
“The cop, though an Ekiti man, was said to have been specially recruited for this coming election. He has become so unruly and over-protected by the state government.
“We, therefore, ask responsible authorities to remove all current heads of police or security agents in Ekiti State before the June 18 election.
“We are pleading for a free and fair election, which APC in Ekiti is routing against. They may later be brought back after the election.
“We wish to bring to the remembrance of the APC-led Federal Government the consequences of mismanaged regional and state elections in the past.
“For instance, the Western Regional election of 1965 which brought an end to the First Republic on 29th January 1966; the Second Republic was equally murdered on December 31, 1983, by the same juntas led by General Mohammadu Buhari after the mismanagement of the Ondo State elections.
“The present Ekiti State was part of the Ondo State at that time. This is why the Ekiti and the Federal Governments under the same APC, should have a rethink not to plan mismanagement of the June 18 election.
“Simply, we are saying beware of ‘ides of July.’ “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it,” says Winston Churchill.