Elections must hold — Falana, Opadokun, groups

                              

By Bashir Adefaka

Any further polls shift will be fought  — NUD

Plans by the Federal Government to further truncate the 2015 elections have failed. This was the position of pro-democracy groups who came together, yesterday, at a rally held at Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, to say that any attempt by the Jonathan administration to postpone the elections again or use the military in the electoral conduct would be met with stiff fight by them.

Addressing the gathering, tagged, “Citizens Expression of Love for Democracy,” organised at the instance of an umbrella pro-democracy group, “Nigerians United for Democracy (NUD),” activists were bold in making their positions known.

In one of the flyers distributed at the rally, they said, “Nigerians say no to further postponement of election date; no to politicising our armed forces; no to Interim Government and not to military rule again in Nigeria.”

                              

In his address, the leader of the NUD, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), warned security chiefs to be awake to the reality that they had no business interfering in electoral conduct, adding that the military had usurped the role of the INEC and the police by forcing themselves into electoral matters thereby committing constitutional breach.

On the leaders who claimed to be speaking for the Yoruba and Igbo and thus announced that they their people had endorsed Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to return as President in the coming elections, Falana and Mr. Ayo Opadokun believed that they were just a pack of game players who meant nothing in the real sense of the state of Yoruba and Igbo affairs.

Falana said although there was no coup, he established that Jonathan’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, had said that the Jonathan administration would never hand over to General Muhammadu Buhari.



Culled from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/