Kwara bye-election: PDP cautions Buhari to stop using Police for politics

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the on-going alleged plot to use the police as a tool to intimidate voters and rig the Irepodun/Ekiti/Oke-Ero/Isin Federal Constituency by-election, in Kwara State, scheduled for Saturday.

This was contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja yesterday by the National Secretary of the Party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan.

According to the Statement, the party cautioned President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to bear in mind that such a plot would be a direct invitation to the crisis, as the people of Kwara State were already fully rallied behind the PDP in firm resistance and to dismantle all APC rigging machinery at the polls.

The Party pointed out haven realised that there was no way they could win in any election in Kwara State, after being rejected by the people, the APC and the Buhari Presidency wee bent on manipulating the electoral process, including using the nation’s security agencies, particularly, the police against the will of the people.

According to the statement: “The PDP is privy to clandestine meetings at the Presidency, where APC leaders handed down orders to the police high command to compromise the security architecture in Kwara state by transferring the Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) in the nine police Divisions of the Federal Constituency and replacing them with officers believed to be pliable to instructions to execute the APC’s rigging script in the election.

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“Moreover, the people of Kwara State already have details of the brief handed to the new DPOs, including providing cover for APC thugs procured to unleash violence on voters and PDP supporters, snatch ballot boxes and disrupt elections in certain areas as well as to alter election results to the favour of the APC candidate.

“The people are also aware of the directives to harass, intimidate, arrest, and detain indigenes of Kwara state, and to provide cover for the importation of aliens from other areas by the APC to participate in the election.

“The PDP, therefore, cautions the APC and their team of compromised security and electoral officials to retrace their steps or face the full wrath of the people of Kwara state, particularly, those in Irepodun/Ekiti/Oke-Ero/Isin Federal Constituency, who is now at full alert and completely rallied to protect their political territory and to defend their votes to the end with every means available to them as free citizens under the law.

“It is a settled fact that Irepodun/Ekiti/Oke-Ero/Isin Federal Constituency and indeed, Kwara state, remains the stronghold of the PDP.

Our candidate, Saheed Alatishe, enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of the people and they are not ready to yield their mandate to any other person, no matter the level of intimidation or threat from the enemies of democracy.”