Soldiers Deployed to Stop APC’s March Against INEC

 

Soldiers were drafted to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Maitama District, Abuja, as part of a heavy security build-up to stop the march of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scheduled for November 28, 2013, Thursday.

On November 27 the APC leaders informed about their intension to march in protest against its plan to have a supplementary election in Anambra State. The march might also be used to call for the removal of the INEC chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega.

The APC had written the FCT Police Command for protection during the march. But the police turned down the request.

Moreover, some INEC officials met with security agencies on the same day. Details of their talks were unknown. But there were fears that soldiers have been deployed at various entry points leading to INEC and the gate.

INEC is said to be treating the march as “purely a security issue”.

“It is true that soldiers had been deployed in as part of security measures. We cannot ask security agencies not to do their job,” a source said.

In a statement last night by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC vowed to proceed with the march, despite the “illegal” move by the police to stop it.

“We are doing this as a patriotic service to the nation because INEC as presently constituted is not capable of organising a free and fair election again in Nigeria. If the Commission is not checked, its incompetence and conniving acts could plunge the country into chaos of unimaginable proportions,” the statement said.

“We will not be deterred by the blatantly-partisan police, who have missed another great opportunity to affirm their neutrality and respect for the rule of law. We will use this march to prove the point that we shall not condone a police command, however partisan or corrupt, abridging our constitutional rights,” the statement concluded.