President Muhammadu Buhari recently issued death threats to anyone planning to rig the forthcoming elections and also to political thugs who feel they can ruin the electoral process, especially on election day, threatening them that they would be risking their lives.
Buhari, who also aired his disgust at the postponement of the general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said INEC cannot and will not take Nigerian citizens for granted.
According to him, the commission will be made to account for its “incompetence” when the elections are over.
“I do not expect anybody to make any disturbance. I have briefed the law enforcement agencies and the military to identify hotspots, flash points; they should be prepared to move.
They too would have made their own arrangements as possible and resources provided as much as the country can afford it. “Anybody who decides to snatch ballot boxes or lead thugs to disturb it (elections), maybe that would be the last unlawful action he would take. I have directed the police and the military to be ruthless.
“We are not going to be blamed that we want to rig elections. I want Nigerians to be respected, let them vote whoever they want across the parties. I’m not afraid. As you said, I have gone round all the 36 states and Abuja. I think I have got enough support across the country.
“I am going to warn anybody who thinks he has enough influence in his locality to lead a body of thugs to snatch boxes or to disturb the voting system, he would do it at the expense of his own life.”
On INEC, he said, “INEC had all the time and all the resources they wanted and didn’t have to wait for only six hours to cancel the elections and tell us it was impossible. Definitely, the reason such incompetence manifested has to be explained to the nation.
“After the elections, we have to know exactly what happened and who is responsible. Otherwise, our efforts to make sure that this system is acceptable would have been eroded.
“The constitution and the law protects INEC, but they must not take us for granted. If for example, the National Assembly refused to approve what they wanted, INEC would have had moral reasons they couldn’t perform. “If the time of four years of election was not constitutionally obeyed by the government, INEC would have a case. But we don’t understand the reason for this inefficiency and we have to go into details after the election to find out who is responsible.
“I thank the party leadership for their commitment. That was why we sat and said we must have committed leaders in all constituencies to be our agents. We also sat down and worked out the least the party should do for our agents so that they will not depend on anybody or say I am going to drink water or I am going to toilet. “We made all those arrangements and put it before the governors and chairmen of the party. Where the APC has no governors, the governorship candidates and state chairmen were given that assignment.
“I am satisfied that this instruction has been passed down. Right now, we have so much to do and so, we should now go back to our loyal members in all constituencies so that if anything happens, we will know who to blame. “We have told our constituents to be patient and react in a very mature way by going peacefully and vote and depend on party representatives in the polling units,”
