PDP youths kick against deployment of soldiers for Bayelsa poll

A youth group, Peoples Democratic Party Youth Network (PDPYN), on Tuesday warned against deployment of the military for electoral purposes during the governorship poll holding on November 16, 2019, in Bayelsa, recalling that experience had shown that soldiers were biased by their antecedents in providing purported security during the previous exercise.

PDPYN, the umbrella body of PDP youths across the state, gave the warning in a statement signed by its secretary-general, Comrade James Oputin, copy of which made available to newsmen in Lagos.

Oputin recalled the sad incident of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area on election day on February 23, 2019 that led to killing of two people and the carting away of some election materials in connivance with All Progressives Congress (APC) thugs, a development, which he said, aided “the wildest rigging in Bayelsa history which gave the party (APC) its victory in the last senatorial election.”

According to PDPYN scribe, the Army authorities have not responded positively to build confidence in the people since the right violation and gruesome murder, saying that the PDPYN and the Bayelsa people who had not forgotten the grisly incident and other acts of bias linked to the Army were indeed wary of the deployment of soldiers whose brazen activities left no one in doubt that they were on a mission to rig election for the APC.

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Oputin, therefore, enjoined the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to jettison its plan to use soldiers, saying doing so would be inimical to the credibility of the commission and the electoral process in Bayelsa.

PDPYN, while saying that it was aware of the desperate plans involving militants and some security agencies to attempt to wrest political control in Bayelsa, called on the human rights organizations such as the Amnesty International (AI), the Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), and the international community to stand in defence of the right of the Bayelsa people to elect their leaders without threat of assassination and molestation.

Oputin contended that INEC had a responsibility to adhere strictly by the electoral law by allowing the police to lead security provision during the election, maintained that anything short of that would amount to the execution of the plot to subvert the will of the people through electoral manipulation and fraud with the aid of the Army.

However, Oputin said that INEC could use the services of the Nigerian Navy to escort election materials as the personnel of the Navy displayed noticeable professionalism and good conduct during the last election.

This was just as he pointed out that current Army exercise tagged: “Operation Crocodile Smile” in Bayelsa was a surreptitious attempt to deploy soldiers to harass PDP members and rig the election, calling on the Chief of Army Staff (COS) and indeed the leadership of the Army to discourage the deployment and abuse of soldiers and the image of the Army for electoral purposes.