The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) in Ondo State has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of planning to unleash violence on the opposition and the electorate in the state in the October 10, 2020 governorship poll.
CNPP described the statewide violence that marred the recent local government election in the state as a dress rehearsal to what will happen during the Governorship poll.
CNPP stated this at a press briefing on the State of Security in Ondo State on Wednesday, September 1, 2020, ahead of the governorship election in the state.
The briefing was attended by representatives of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Action Democratic Congress (ADC)
CNPP said the recourse to violence, intimidation and subterfuge by officials of the outgoing APC government in Ondo State as manifested in the recent local government poll largely boycotted by many political parties is a confirmation that the APC is preparing for war and not an election.
“In the said sham of an election, not only were candidates of participating parties intimidated, harassed and violently assaulted, voters were disenfranchised and figures concocted to meet the pre-planned agenda of the outgoing APC government,” CNPP said.
Rather than abate, the violence, according to CNPP, have taken new dimensions with meetings of political parties being invaded by known thugs and members of the APC, their cronies and agents.
“Also spreading across the state are confirmed incidences of scarred heads, broken limbs and bruised bodies which align with the ‘strategy’ openly canvassed by Kekemeke which is yet to be condemned by his party, the APC,” said CNPP as it frowned at the illegal arrest, dehumanising treatment and detention of members of the opposition parties by police and military officers.
It added that the spreading political violence in the state, which recently reached an all-time high, may not be unconnected with the well articulated though sinister position expressed by a former Chairman of APC in the state, D.I. Kekemeke, “a self confessed militant and an apparatchik of the APC, who not only boasted of being in possession of high calibre arms, but went ahead to name known harbingers of violence that are to be recruited to cause mayhem from within and without the State.”
state.
