From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
A coalition of Eastern Civil Rights group headed by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has sounded the warning that the Saturday’s 2023 Presidential election is Nigeria’s last chance of getting the country back on the right track or pushing it into intractable complex uncertainties
The civil rights coalition including the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), South east zone who spoke yesterday in Enugu during a global media conference to highlight critical areas and issues most likely to mar the presidential election and push Nigeria into post election uncertainties warned that there may be may be far-reaching consequences and social control system breakdown after 2023 presidential poll if presidency of South-East extraction is scuttled or denied.
Board Chairman of Intersociety, Emeka Uneagbalasi who spoke on behalf of the coalition said an elected presidency of the South-East extraction if achieved after the election must also pluralistically ensure equitable distribution of nineteen top political and security offices among Nigeria’s six geopolitical regions
Umeagbalasi disclosed that there is the fear of a likely youth uprising/”Boys Oyee”(mob uprising) against South-East political bootlickers and counterfeit Biafra agitators if 2023 presidential poll and South-East presidency project are violently disrupted and denied
The coalition said that like in the 2019 presidential poll, the Nigerian Military must be closely monitored and stopped from militarizing and terrorizing the Feb 2023 presidential poll and paving way for a predetermined outcome.
The group also said that like in the 2019 Presidential and Jan 2020 Imo Governorship alleged Supreme Court travesties of justice, the Nigerian Judiciary must be closely monitored and stopped from a disgraceful repeat of the 2019 armada of judicial hara-kiri in the post 2023 Presidential Poll litigations while the dark days of ‘Zainab Bulkachuwa at the Court of Appeal and Muhammed Tanko at the Supreme Court must not be repeated in 2023.
The group said INEC is putting Feb 2023 Presidential Poll in danger by failing to answer sixteen critical questions over permanent voters’ cards, voters’ list, underage, presidential poll date and voters’ protection
It said most dangerous areas for Igbo voters in Lagos and Northern Nigeria requiring Election Day international monitoring and effective policing and voters’ protection must be put in place before the election.
It identified Imo and Ebonyi States as most dangerous areas for independent and conscientious voters in the East which must be closely monitored.
The group sadly stated that 4000 people mostly Christians have been killed and 6000 abducted in Kaduna state since 2015 under El-Rufai over radical propagation of Muslim-Muslim ticket .
The group finally said Election Day global searchlight and monitoring should be a must in twelve major presidential poll rigging Northern States of Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Adamawa and Niger so as to disallow 18m “dead votes” from being injected by INEC into the Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Poll final results.
“This Joint Global Media Conference, six days to the all-important Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Poll is built on the recent Intersociety’s global media conference in Enugu on Christmas Day of 25th Dec 2022 during which, a detailed 27-Page Special Investigative Report, exposing INEC and its 50 major poll rigging plots/other illegalities was unveiled.”
“Recall that the major highlight of the 27-Page Report lies on the fact that Nigeria’s INEC is organizing the country’s Feb 25th 2023 Presidential Poll with whopping 77.7m Nigerian citizens of voting age disenfranchised and discriminatorily excluded from participating and voting in the crucial poll”.
“The worst of it all has to do with the fact that the disenfranchisement was brutally systematic and ethno-religiously targeted and aimed at brutally suppressing the voting population and strength of the voting citizens of non Muslim faith particularly those from the South-East and South-South including their sedentary and pastoralist components.” The group said.