Don’t repeat Ekiti rigging strategy, APC warns Jonathan

The All Progressives Congress has warned President Goodluck Jonathan not to use the military and other organs of state to rig Saturday’s election “like the June 21, 2014 governorship election was rigged in Ekiti.”

The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this during a press conference in Lagos on Monday.

The APC spokesman also recalled that on the eve of the election, several APC leaders were arrested for no reason and then released days after the elections.

He explained that the entire plot, which purportedly involved Governor Ayodele Fayose, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Senator Iyiola Omisore, an army general and others was captured on an audio file which is now referred to as the “Ekiti Rigging Tape.”

He said, “As the clock ticks toward the D-Day, we are compelled to alert Nigerians, local and foreign election observers and indeed the international community to the strategy being employed by the PDP-led Jonathan administration to manipulate the elections, using what we call the “Modified Ekiti Rigging Strategy.”

He added, “It is no longer news that a Captain in the Nigerian Army, Sagir Koli, has exposed how the administration used the military to rig the governorship election in Ekiti on June 21, 2014. According to Capt. Sagir, soldiers were put at the behest of designated PDP officials at each of the 16 local governments in the state to work with the officials to rig the elections.

“Once the PDP officials pointed out any APC leader in a particular local government, such a leader was either arrested and detained or simply hounded into hiding. APC leaders who were arrested also had the funds in their possession, including money to pay party agents and for other logistics, confiscated as they were detained till well after the election.”