By Boluwaji Obahopo, LOKOJA

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC)-led government of Kogi state have continued to bicker over the ‘protest’ carried out by youths at the state secretariat of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Lokoja.

While the state government accused the SDP of sponsoring the violent protesters, the SDP said the protest was staged and managed by the state government to put their party in bad light.

It took the effort of the security agencies on Wednesday to disperse the youths who stormed the State Secretariat of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), dispersing the protesters with tear gas while barricading the road leading to the office. 

The protest started peacefully around 10 a.m., until some of the youths started throwing harmful objects and harassing passersby, demanding that the election materials be moved to Abuja.

One of the protesters, who identified himself as Danjuma, said they were sure the materials at the INEC Office had been compromised by the APC. 

“We have it on good authority that the APC and Yahaya Bello have tampered with the election materials. The materials they are taking to the tribunal have already been doctored. So we are calling on INEC to take the original material to INEC, or we will make Kogi State ungovernable. 

“Those who stole the mandate of Kogi East must not live to enjoy it. We are calling on the President and also the National Chairman of INEC to ensure the doctored materials are immediately replaced with the original ones before they are presented at the tribunal. Anything other than that will be resisted,” he said.

However, the Director of Media, Muri/Abeneme Campaign Council, Mr. Faruq Adejoh said the protesters were thugs deployed to the INEC office in Lokoja by the Governor of the State, Yahaya Bello, to attack lawyers and forensic experts of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which prevented them from examining documents and materials emanating from the Kogi State November 11 Governorship Elections. 

“The thugs wearing SDP t-shirts and posters procured for them by Bello and his gang of outlaws in the Kogi State Government have also been detailed to attack and sack the office to ensure the materials needed for our party to prosecute its petition at the tribunal are compromised. Right now, they have seized the entire Marine Street housing the Lokoja INEC office and several other adjourning streets, threatening the security of INEC and the sensitive materials there.

“They are chanting war slogans claiming they are “SDP members” who are against the movement of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines to Abuja for security reasons and the forensic examination of electoral documents. 

“Bello’s desperate resort to this extreme plan of overrunning INEC through an insurrection of rented thugs was after our campaign raised alarm at the weekend to forestall his earlier plan to burn down the Lokoja INEC office housing the materials. 

“We are shocked that other security agencies, particularly the Directorate of State Security (DSS), also did nothing to secure the INEC office and the materials, despite our official statements in the past few days raising alarm about the plot to attack the INEC office by Yahaya Bello, who has never pretended about his preference for violence and extra-legal criminal tactics to gain an advantage in his dealings. 

“Yahaya Bello must not be allowed to crudely and brazenly rig the November 11th elections in favor of his puppet cousin and thereafter compromise the judicial process by renting thugs to attack INEC and compromise materials needed for evidence.

“We are told that most of the sensitive materials needed for inspection may have already been compromised by INEC staff, who are his agents and accomplices, and we are now waiting for this orchestrated attack to claim the materials were lost to the mob.

“We are calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to immediately order the quelling of this rented insurrection to safeguard our fragile democracy. If this extreme criminality by Mr. Bello and his security chief collaborators is not quelled and allowed to prevail, then a very dangerous precedent would have been set.”

When contacted, the Director, Media and Publicity/Spokesperson of the Kogi APC Governorship Campaign Council, Kingsley Fanwo, dismissed the allegations as senseless and called on the authorities to call the SDP to order.

He said the APC would assess the situation and issue an official statement on it later, noting that “the SDP people know they have no evidence to back their claims. They are playing the victim to cover their shame.”

He, however, said the SDP should allow the Tribunal to sit peacefully and give INEC the breathing space to do their work as required by the law.”