Cross River State Chapter of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has raised the alarm over alleged series of plans and strategies by powerful politicians in the state to ensure that the will of the people is truncated in the forthcoming general elections in the State.
The State Chairman of IPAC, Comrade Anthony Bissong Attah, raised the alarm Monday while addressing journalists at the IPAC Office in Calabar, the State capital.
“With renewed pressure to ensure INEC doesn’t compromise the election, there are fresh plans to use security agencies, especially the Nigerian Police to militarize the election,” he stated.
Consequently, he said, IPAC in the State has rejected the list of Security Officers deployed to supervise the conduct of the general elections in Cross River State.
“Through our security intelligence, we recently peeped into the list of police officers deployed to Cross River State and we are very curious because some of the officers are men of questionable pedigree. We have it on good authority that the following officers have been enlisted for election duties in Cross River State; CP Garba Aliyu – Overall Election CP, CP Stanley Ude – South, CP Akinwale Adenirun – Central, DCP Elias Eliegwu – North.
The Chairman said IPAC is worried that the leader of the team is an officer who as Commissioner of Police in Ebonyi State was allegedly responsible for all the crises and atrocities in the neighbouring state.
“CP Garba Aliyu has a penchant for supporting non state actors in their bid to unleash mayhem on the citizens of the state. His open support for Ebubeagu has been responsible for the killings, destruction of properties and general state of insecurity in Ebonyi state. He is a highly compromised officer known for being an easy and ready tool in the hands of the government of the day. He is the one behind the strangulation of opposition political parties in Ebonyi state.
“We are also curious about the formation of new Tactical Units opposite Cross River State Governors Office to be trained and used for Election to be headed by CSP BAYERO (from Abuja command).These New units formed are drafted from Puff Adder, Sabotage, Anti Kidnapping, SPU and Mopol.
“On the strength of the aforesaid, we hereby unanimously reject the above list of officers especially the head of the team as it is our considered opinion that this deployment is a well planned agenda to use security to rig the 2023 general election. With his dented records of compromise and notoriety for human rights abuses, any election conducted under the supervision of CP Garba Aliyu will no doubt have the imprint of blood,” Comrade Attah noted.
The Council called on the Inspector General of Police to immediately review the list of officers due to be posted to Cross River State for election duties.
“We equally restate our earlier demand for the redeployment of the DCP Operations, Francis Idu because of public perception of his ignoble role in the state police command given the poor handling of the unit under his leadership. Now that CP Sule will be out on election duty, we cannot afford the risk of keeping the DCP Operations in the state during election,” the group added.
Comrade Attah also called on the people of Cross River State to be vigilant “because democracy and free and fair elections are about to be tested in the forthcoming elections.”
On the failure of Governor Ben Ayade to retract the N50 million bribery allegations against IPAC after the 48 hours ultimatum given to him, Comrade Attach said: “The failure of the government to retract the allegation has been viewed as his endorsement of a court action. Consequently, we have directed our legal team to immediately sue the government for defamation.”
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