….Orders security agents to shoot at sight party thugs

…Observe a minute silence in honour of dead supporters

…Okorocha, Amosun absent

…INEC has no right to stop campaign – Oshiomhole

Romanus Ugwu and Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived for the All Progressives Congress (APC), National Caucus emergency meeting at the party secretariat in Abuja.

This is even as the governors of Imo, Rochas Okorocha and Ogun, Ibikunle Amosun were conspicuously absent at the meeting.

Buhari arrived the venue at 11:30 am alongside Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The meeting went into closed door at 12: 22pm.

The meeting is to discuss prevailing national issues, following Saturday’s postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

President Buhari disclosed that he has ordered security agents to deal ruthlessly with party thugs that try to snatched ballot boxes.

Buhari who said he is confident that he has garnered enough supporters having gone round the country to campaign, urged party members to reassure their constituents to come out and vote on the rescheduled dates.

The President urged party agents to watch out for the party interests at the polling units.

Buhari disclosed that  he has directed  security agencies to identify hot spots and be ready to move should they suspect any attempts to cause problems  body of thugs across the country irrespective of party affiliations.

The President said, there is no explanations for what we went through. I was told about the decision of INEC at quarter to 5am in the morning of the elections.

INEC had all the time and resources, didn’t have to wait six hours to the elections to announced postponement.

Definitely, INEC must explain to Nigerians what happened, the constitution and the law protects INEC but they must not take us for granted.

If we had failed to provide all what INEC wanted, then we would have been held responsible.

“So at least after the elections we will have to go into details to find out what happened,” he said.

The meeting before it commenced, observed a minute silence in honour of dead supporters at campaign venues across the country.

In his opening remarks, Oshiomhole described the meeting as “all important.”

He commended President Buhari for going round the country to talk to Nigerians.

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The ruling party chairman said, in the course of going round the country, we saw a lot of very fanatical supporters, some of them even looking under fed, but because of their faith that Buhari that only he can deliver dividends of democracy, they came out.

Oshiomhole said the ruling party was determined not to disappoint supporters and Nigerians.

According to him, the party did what is expected to ensure a successful elections including providing all logistics to all those involved in elections exercise including party agents.

We saw INEC’s magic, the worst had happened and postponed the elections by one week without cogent reasons.

If we and ordinary Nigerians were shocked, then we can only imagined how shocked you were, more as as you are determined.

This action was meant to frustrate our party and discourage voters.

We are determined to put INEC to shame, and to reiterated that we are committed to free, fair and credible elections. We are not going to compromise on that.

He said apart from being disgusted about INEC’s postponements, he is curious and suspects there is hidden agenda.

He described as rubbish, INEC’s excuse about Nigeria’s population and challenges of moving materials around.

He called on INEC to move around state commissioners who have been compromised and become institutionalized and which may compromise the outcome of the results.

Oshiomhole insisted that INEC’s knew that the election was not going to hold and did leaked the information to the main opposition party. He said all early warning indicators showed that INEC had something up it sleeves.

He alleged that INEC is  working with anti-democratic elements to frustrate free and fair elections.

He said INEC has no right to stop campaigns, insisting that voters need to be reminded as this might result in low voters turn out. He hinted that they are ready to go to court.

Oshiomhole also said the ruling party is going to write INEC to explain if the card readers have been reconfigured and what is the guarantee that it won’t fail, and why deploy only 4,000 card readers, saying what is expected is 176,000 card readers and spares.

He said the ruling party does not want staggered elections but elections conducted simultaneously across all pulling units.

He said INEC need to assure Nigerians that the samples of sensitive materials already in circulation will not compromise the process.

“We must not allow this shock affect our voters, we need to renew campaign and reassure the voters especially APC voters.

He called on President Buhari to ensure those involve in what he called national sabotage are pushed using the rule of law.

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Also in attendance are National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, national leader, Bola Tinubu, and Director General of Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi.

Governors in attendance as at the time the meeting went into closed doors at … are Zamfara, Edo, Ekiti, Borno, Bauchi, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Niger and Nasarawa.

Others are Plateau, Kaduna, Kogi, Kano, Lagos, Jigawa, Kebbi.

Some National Assembly members in attendance include Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, Godswill Akpabio,

Also in attendance are governorship candidates of Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Rivers.

The ministers in attendance are Information and Culture, Power, Works and Housing, Education, and Agriculture.

Details later…