Anambra State gubenatorial candidates ahead of Saturday 6 November election have signed a peace accord in Awka, the state captial, on Thursday.
The peace accord ceremony was organised by the National Peace Committee, under the chairmanship of former Military Head of State, General Abdulsalaam Abubakar.
The accord is equally binding on the candidate’s political parties and is expected to encourage signees to take proactive steps “towards ensuring a conducive environment for the conduct of a credible electoral process.”
As security measure, in the meantime, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Alhaji Usman Alkali Baba, has ordered the restriction of vehicular movement in the state, which means there would be no movement of vehicles in and out of Anambra State from 11:59 pm on Friday, 5 November to 11:59 pm on Saturday, 6 November.
A coalition of Governors from the five South-East states have urged residents to ignore threats of insecurity, confidently go out on Saturday and vote for any candidate of their choice.
The candidates have made their last pitch to voters ahead of the election this weekend.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo warns trouble makers
Earlier, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Worldwide, who commended the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government for the deployment of security that makes assurances that the governorship election in Anambra will hold possible, warned mischief and trouble makers to stay away from the state, in a statement dated Thursday 4 November, 2021 and issued by its Director General, Strategic Planning and Implementations, Amb. Tony Chiemelu Obizoba, and copy of which was made available to The DEFENDER.
“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Worldwide speaks about the Anambra State governorship election coming up at the weekend, precisely Saturday 6th November, 2021, thanking the Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari for providing and deploying large number of security in the South East geopolitical zone of the country, especially in Anambra State ahead of its governorship election.
“But also, like Oliver Twist, we will be requesting for Federal Government to deploy more security personnel to protect its electorate,” Obizoba said.
According to the statement, “As the apex body of Ndi Igbo, we the Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Worldwide, are saying that Anambra State election must not only be to vote but also must be peaceful, free and fair, and that security should be done to the barest minimum to enable the voters come out en-masse and cast their votes, because it is their civic responsibility.”
Talking tough the Igbo socio-cultural group said, “And we will be warning those mischief makers and trouble makers, who believe that they can and want to truncate the will of the masses, to stay clear of Anambra State because, the place is known for being a peaceful state and we believe that after election over the weekend, we will begin to have relative peace and change. This is so because, we know that this crisis is the handwork of some unpatriotic elements, who believe that they do not want things to be done rightly.”
Once again, it said, “we, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, detest anything or any element that connects with insecurity or terrorism and so, we refuse to sign in to whatever idea that is either sympathetic or gives such perpetrators a free ride, be it in the South East region or any part of Nigeria.
“We stand our ground to say that there can be no level of security measure too huge to combat insecurity, so long that, in doing that, the international convention on human rights is taken cognizance of. Aside that, anyone, who has chosen to be insecurity agent causing collapse of peace and order in the land or is in allegiance with terrorism automatically loses his human rights and must complain to no one when coming face to face with consequences of his or her own evil actions against the society and humanity in general,” it said.
