President Jonathan paying lip service to free elections ----APC

(Nigeria) The All Progressives Congress, APC, has challenged  President Goodluck Jonathan to walk his talk as far as the organisation of free and fair elections in the country was concerned, saying all the assurances so far given by the President have not translated into credible elections.

APC in a statement in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, urged the President to go beyond mere rhetoric and take concrete actions to ensure that the elections in the country are not marred by the intimidation and harassment of opposition party members and supporters as well as the deliberate disenfranchisement of voters, which hallmarked the Anambra and Ekiti State gubernatorial elections, among others.

''On the same day the President's latest assurances of a free, fair, credible and transparent elections in 2015 were being reported, agents of the Jonathan-led Federal Government were ransacking the offices of a company hired to carry out an opinion poll for Osun State ahead of the August 9 gubernatorial election.

''If the Ngozi Okonjo Iweala-linked NOI polling firm has never been harassed for its choreographed opinion polls that favour the Jonathan Administration, why should other firms be subjected to the kind of Gestapo- tactics that tnsrms was exposed to? This is why we are asking President Jonathan to walk to talk,'' APC said.

The party said that already, the foundation was being laid to rig next month's governorship election in Osun at source, as INEC has been frustrating attempts by APC members to obtain their Permanent Voters Cards, even as the PDP has continued to boast that it will again use the military to illegally shut down the state and bully the opposition in Osun, just like it did in Ekiti State.

It also wondered whether INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega properly weighed the statement he made, in which he tried to justify the deployment of troops to Ekiti for the state's gubernatorial election on the basis that they helped to ensure a violence-free election.

''Jega should be asked to explain why is it that the troops who were sent to provide security for the Ekiti election were harassing and intimidating only the opposition? Why is it that they were arresting only opposition members? Is that also part of providing security for an election? If soldiers had only provided non-intrusive security for the election, perhaps no one would have complained. But where they turned themselves into the enforcement arm of the ruling party, everyone, including INEC, should be concerned,'' APC said.

The party called on President Jonathan to refrain from deploying the military for election purposes and read the riot act to his cabinet members, like Musiliu Obanikoro and Abduljelili Adesiyna, and party officials who specialize in electoral malfeasance, and elections will start becoming free, fair, credible and transparent to such an extent that the world will notice.

''Saying one thing and doing the opposite, Mr. President, will not translate to credible elections. The world is watching,'' it said.

APC also urged the President, if indeed he is committed to free and fair elections, to launch an inquiry into why the offices of the firm carrying out an opinion poll for Osun state were invaded, and to tell Nigerians whether the firm would have been harassed if it had been hired by the PDP or its candidate for the August 9 election.