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From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Leader of Biafra Land Defenders (BLD), Ndubuisi Igwekani, has said that the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept elections results in areas where there were obvious fraud, intimidation and subversion of people’s choices has shown Nigeria as irredeemable.
Speaking to newsmen in Aba, Igwekani warned that any attempt by INEC to announce results that were against what the people of Nigeria voted for would be resisted.
“We are saying that we will never accept it. Mark our words, any results that ‘ll be released by INEC, that is contrary to what the people of Nigeria voted for, will be resisted with our sweat and blood. “By all available evidence, Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, was never a candidate of the South East or Igbo. He is the choice candidate of many Nigerians across the six geopolitical zones of the country; so his election must be respected by all.”
He, however, expressed happiness that his group’s efforts at battling violence that would have stopped Southeasterners from voting were currently yielding good results, as many unpopular politicians that once felt they were unbeatable because of the political parties they belonged to were now getting retired by the people’s choice of new leaders.
The BLD leader described as disturbing, a situation where INEC would openly accept result of an election in an area where thugs and armed criminals working for unscrupulous politicians threatened the lives and property of Nigerian citizens, and forcing them to vote against their choice or vacate the venue of the election.
Igwekani said that the reports coming out from Rivers, Imo and Lagos states should make every Nigerian ask if there was any hope for the country, alleging that the governors and political power brokers in those states shamefully colluded with security agencies and INEC officials, to deny Nigerians their choice of leaders and manipulated results to sound good for them.
BLD, according to him, “took it upon themselves as a duty to ensure that all antics to stop the people of South East from voting, were checkmated, but when the people plotting insecurity in the South East noticed that their plot to use “unknown gunmen” as an excuse to disenfranchise the South-East failed, they came out in the open, to stop the people from voting or changed their votes in different parts of the country.” “BLD had expected the police and INEC to intervene and stop the situation, but they colluded to make the efforts, the cries and zeal of old voters and new voters who desperately need change to go down the drain.”
«We›re saying that we›ll never accept it. Mark our words, any result that›ll be announced by INEC that›s contrary to what the people of Nigeria voted for must be resisted with our sweat and blood,» he said.
Igwekani said that BLD achieved its aim by making sure that the people of the South-East and some parts of the South-South came out to vote without intimidation, but felt disappointed with the collusion between security agencies and politicians who want to be in power by all means.
