We wish Kwara election is as credible as Osun election - Group
Kwara Must Change wishes to inform the general public that we carefully followed the recently conducted Governorship election in Osun state and the reactions that trailed its outcome.
While it is true that Kwara Must Change didn’t go to Osun to observe the governorship election, it is important to state that we carefully studied the position of several local and international observers that monitored the election.
Before we go further into giving our position on the Osun election,it is necessary to remind the general public that in November 2017, local government election took place in Kwara State and during the build up to that election, some peaceful youths in Lafiagi town, Edu local government were violently murdered in broad day light by Senator Shaaba Lafiagi's security.
Until this day, nobody has been held accountable for the murder, neither did the Kwara State Government issued any statement in recognition that some Nigerian citizens under its watch had been cruelly denied of their fundamental right to life.
In the November local government election in Kwara State, the world witnessed the height of impunity and rape of democracy. Not only were the peoples mandate violently stolen from the winners, we also witnessed an outright murder of people who were only exercising their democratic rights.
It is with this background that Kwara Must Change took special interest in the Osun governorship election and followed all reports emanating from credible observers monitoring the process.
One of the credible observers at the Osun governorship election is the United States embassy, led by its Consular General, Mr John Bray. The United States Consular General, Mr John Bray described the process as credible. The U.S embassy head in Lagos, who personally observed the Osun governorship election was reported to have said, ‘’he didn’t observe any malpractices or violations of the Electoral Act in Unit 17, ward 5 where the election took place’’. Many other observers also reported similar things.
However, some other observers reported something contrary, which is also worthy of note. Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) through its director, Idayat Hassan lamented that the conduct of some key stakeholders clearly ran contrary to democratic norms and standards. Other observers also shared similar opinion.
For us at Kwara Must Change, we are of the views that, there seems to be some short comings in some of the polling units which needed to be improved upon going forward. Notwithstanding, this didn’t make the overall conduct of the election and its outcome less seminal.
While we urge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve in its conduct of elections in the future, we wished that an election as credible as this is conducted in Kwara State.
We also wished that all those raising their voices in the osun election also did the same during the rape of Kwara election.
Surprisingly, those who violently raped Kwara and openly stole the peoples mandate are the same set of people complaining about Osun’s election.
Kwara Must Change therefore call on the Federal government to bring all those who are responsible for the killings of youths in Lafiagi town to book.
Abdulrazaq O Hamzat
Kwara Must Change
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