From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara has said that democracy has been murdered in Nigeria as a result of the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to upload the results of last Saturday’s presidential and national assembly elections directly from the polling units as they had earlier assured.
Addressing newsmen in Umuahia, Wabara dismissed the polls as a sham because of the way INEC handled it after the people had turned up massively to cast their ballots.
Wabara who is also the Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the shameful conduct of INEC at the polls had subjected Nigeria to mockery before the international community.
He called for the outright cancellation of the polls and the conduct of a fresh election if the unity and continued existence of the country mattered anything to those behind what he called the broad-day rape and murder of the Nigeria democracy.
“It’s a sham! You can see from the international observers how they condemned what we called election in the 21st century.
“So, that thing has to be cancelled in the interest of Nigeria and the unity of the country.
“There is no hope again for the country. We have killed democracy in Nigeria”.
He maintained that but for rigging, there was no way Nigerians would have reasonably voted for APC after passing through hell in the hands of the ruling party these eight years.
“The indices were there before the election even to the blind that Nigerians really wanted a genuine change.
“If the PDP or even the Labour Party had won, I’m not sure we would have this coldness that has enveloped the country. By now there would have been celebration all over the country”, he said.
The former Senate President expressed doubts if the judiciary will be courageous enough to correct the anomaly.
“Our democracy has died because I don’t have any hope in the judiciary. They are the same thing unless we have a bold judge who is prepared to lose his job the next day, but we don’t have them many”.
The PDP BoT Chairman, said he would convene emergency meeting of the the BoT members immediately after the March 11 governorship and House of Assembly polls to review the elections.