Despite winning the Osun governorship election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said there was no level playing field in the election.
The party’s statement is hinged on reported cases and claims of arrests and harassment of the party’s leaders days before the election by security agents in the state.
A spokesman for the party, Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday, claimed he was arrested by men of the State Security Service without justifiable reasons and insisted that it was a violation of his right which he would contest in a court.
Mr Mohammed stressed that the credibility of an election was adjudged by the the process – what happened before, during and after the election.
He said that the election, though won by his party, left many lessons and unpleasant situations that must be addressed in future elections.
“There are many lessons that we need to take away from the Osun election won by the incumbent governor Rauf Aregbesola.
“The first and most important to our party is the issue of a level playing field for everybody. I want to say that there was no level playing field at the Osun election,” he said.
The APC spokesman listed two bodies as central to any election – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies.
He also pointed out that the overall body involved in an election was the Federal Government, but stressed that the government must at all times be non-partisan.
“The Federal Government must be non-partisan in its approach to any election because it controls structures, including INEC and the security.
“We have no issues at all if security is brought to an election in a state to ensure a level playing ground for everybody, but when you bring the security to tip the election in favour of one party against the other, we start getting worried,” Mr Mohammed said.
“Uniform On Hoodlums”
He further explained that his party received reports that, about two weeks to the election, a convoy of personnel of the State Security Service in about 50 trucks drove through Oshogbo, some wearing masks and shooting in the air, a situation he said was capable of causing tension and apprehension in the state.
Mr Mohammed listed other cases of harassment of groups and individuals meant to create fear in the minds of the people, claiming that some of the men dressed in civil defence uniform were not trained officials of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.
“I was abducted and those who abducted me are not official police or Department of Security Service (DSS) men because they had their mask on without a name tag.
“We were about to have a meeting with the governor and right on the street behind the governor’s residence we met a road check and we were asked to come down and identify ourselves.
“I identified myself as Lai Mohammed and the asked me to go into a the bus. I asked why I should get into the bus, they said I was under arrest and forced me into the bus with a gun to my head. We got into the bus and we met these masked men that were very hostile. They took my phone and took us to the DSS office in the state.
We were brought down and were held for about two three hours until an officer volunteered to accompany us to where our vehicles were. We got to our car and our driver had been beaten.
“When you put uniform on hoodlums and you put protection on hoodlums, it is not right and it endangers the lives of the people,” he said, sharing some of his experiences at the Osun election.
He stressed that the APC would go to court to contest the infringement of rights so that “lessons would be learnt”.
INEC Did Right
He said that the APC did not win the election because security was impartial or because INEC wanted it, but because the party fought for it.
“We embarked on very rigorous voters education to achieve result. We also engaged INEC robustly on issues that we felt could mar the election. When we noticed discrepancies in the voters’ register we wrote a letter to them, identifying the issues.
“We insisted that the register that should be used for the election should be the register that was used for the distribution of the permanent voter’s card.
Commending the electoral commission for their efforts in the election, he pointed out that the INEC did right by allowing agents to be at the polling unit and allowing the result to be declared at the polling units.
The APC leader further gave credit to the people of Osun who came out to vote and defend their vote, insisting that if anything was done right in the Osun election, it was the people of Osun that should take credit.
He dismissed claims that the APC announced the result of the election before the electoral commission declared Aregbesola the winner.
Mr Mohammed also reiterated that it was possible to have huge number of security personnel in isolated elections like, Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun, but cautioned that such number of security officials would not be available at the general election, where different states would be participating.
In all the isolated elections held in Nigeria, security personnel from different states are usually deployed in the state holding the election to ensure that the process will be peaceful, but the development is creating doubts about how peaceful the 2015 general elections will be with fewer security officials in the states.
