Govs back deployment of soldiers

* Say Nigerians should vote and wait, but…

ABUJA – THE Thirty-Six state governors under the aegis, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF have said they were supporting the deployment of soldiers to help provide a forty-eight hours monitoring of election materials as well as the entire election process in next month’s general elections.

The governors also agreed with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that voters can stay after casting their votes, but there must be decorum as no one will be allowed to take laws into its hands.

According to the governors, armed soldiers would be engaged to accompany movement of polling materials to the voting centres, just as he explained that major reasons for the deployment of the military and other security agencies were that of crowd control at the polls and the need to eradicate electoral malpractices.

 Addressing Journalists, at the Kwara State governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja, Chairman of the Forum and Kwara State governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki  who noted that the NGF has specified rules that members must comply with, however warned that the Forum would not hesitate to disown any erring governor that may be found to have fallen victim of the specified rules during the elections, adding that the Forum had got assurances from the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) on the preparedness of the commission to conduct a free and fair elections as the election begins on Saturday.

Saraki who promised the electorate that the April poll will not be rigged and that their votes will count during the election, vowed that the Forum will not hesitate to sanction any of the governors caught being involved in electoral malpractices, adding that the Council of State Meeting held at the presidential Villa yesterday reached a compromise on the security for the election and resolved that military personnel be deployed 48 hours to the election to assist the police and other security agencies that will be deployed for the elections.

On the issue of ensuring free and fair election, he said that the Forum had agreed to abide by the commitment reached at the meeting in the interest of development of democracy in the country, stressing that as leaders, they are not supposed to be found sponsoring violence of any form.

The Chairman who reiterated that the Governors were ready to lose the elections gallantly if the people did not vote for them at the poll rather than instigate violence with a view to intimidating people to vote for them, said, “the NGF today after meeting the President as governors across party lines, pledged our commitments to free, fair and transparent elections. We all agreed to put the interest of Nigeria above party interest or individual interests.

‘’We agreed that we must imbibe the culture of accepting results whether they are favourable to us or not; we pledged to ensure that we want to win gallantly and also if we lose gallantly as well.”

Saraki said they got assurances from the INEC that voting materials have been moved from the Commission’s headquarters to the zones and states ahead of the April polls, thereby scoring INEC high that the present arrangement is far better than what obtained in 2007. 

Speaking on Electoral violence by voters, he stated that the inspector General of Police Hafiz Ringim has assured that no electoral offender will be allowed to go scot-free.

The Governors he said, also insisted that the era of arrest and free without prosecution should be done away with, adding that anyone caught causing troubles at the poll should be arrested and charged appropriately.