As the race to the 2018 governorship election gathers momentum in Ekti State, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), has warned the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) against subverting the will of the populace to forestall the ignition of crisis of monumental proportion .
The political body told the two institutions, which play pivotal roles in the conduct of elections , to be resistant to all forms of dictations from interested political gladiators to avert anarchy in the state.
The body also passed confidence vote in Governor Ayodele Fayose, in expression of commendations on some of the landmark achievements of his administration since inception on October 16, 2014 after his electoral victory in the June 21, 2014 governorship poll.
This was part of the resolutions reached , on Friday when the Chairman of IPAC in Ekiti, Dr Dele Ekunola, led leaders of all political parties operating in Ekiti on a courtesy visit on the factional Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in the State, Barrister Gboyega Oguntuase.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress(APC) was not represented at the meeting.
Ekunola said there is need for the police and INEC to be apolitical to avert a repeat of the multifaceted 1983 political upheavals that engulfed the Old Ondo State, causing the deaths of many innocent citizens.
“What we expect INEC and police to do is that, they must not be dictated to. They must comply with the electoral acts very rigidly. Police and INEC must not be used for electoral fraud, because they belong to Nigerians and not any individual.
“They must not force any candidate on Ekiti and this can only happen if they allow the electorate to freely choose their leader, because we want Ekiti of tomorrow to be better than today.
“The police in particular must not tolerate intruders from coming to Ekiti to foment trouble, because anything contrary to the wish of Ekiti people during the election will cause crisis and what we want is peace before, during and after the election, because we all belong to the same family”, he said.
Ekunola said the confidence vote passed in appreciation of Fayose’s efforts was targeted at bolstering his morale to be able to open up Ekiti to more development.
“You can now see that all political parties in Ekiti are one. We perate like a family. If you look critically, there is no inter-party crisis and this is how IPAC has been operating at the federal level and it will go down to the ward level because Nigeria and Ekiti need peace and unity”.
Oguntuase, who praised IPAC for brooding on how Ekiti can achieve peace , said the revolutionary transformation being carried out by Fayose will continue, appealing to APC to give peace a chance to forestall the programmes from being truncated.
He also canvassed support for Fayose’s government in view of the alleged attempt to review the April 14, 2015 Supreme court judgement , which validated the governor’s election, saying “nobody should be allowed to throw out Fayose who was popularly elected by the people”.
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