*Insists its agitation for justice a legitimate course
*Says our agitation for justice not to cause trouble
*Insists process that produced Tinubu’s victory remains faulty
By KEMI KASUMU
“For crying out loud, people travelled from London, America and other parts of this country because INEC gave them hope that their votes would be pronounced and counted accordingly. That did not happen and they have the right to challenge it.”
The Labour Party (LP) has once again described its course seeking redress in court to infractions experienced during the recent general elections as one that is legitimate and within its leadership’s legal rights to do.
This is as its Spokesman, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, said his party leaders have been very careful not to do anything that makes them play into the gallery of conspiracy to set them up for arrest.
Tanko, who had slammed the Department of State Service (DSS) following its Interim National Government alert of Wednesday saying Nigerians cannot be intimidated to abandon their pursuance of justice over allegedly robbed mandate freely given during the elections, featured Thursday night in an Arise News’ interview programme, where he, again, told the security agencies he accused of working in cahoots with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to suppress opposition, that Labour Party’s leaders are more civilised than to be cheaply set up for arrest.
The DSS in a statement by its Spokesman, Dr. Peter Afunanya, had Wednesday released a statement alerting the public about what it called plot by some ‘misguided’ political actors to set aside the constitution and install Interim National Government (ING) against President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu being inaugurated on May 29 as new President of Nigeria.
An APC politician had earlier appeared on the television interview where he accused Labour Party leaders especially the Vice Presidential Candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed of uttering statements to undermine the democratic process.
But the LP’s Spokesman rejected attempt to hold the party responsible for whatever outcome the infractions and voter suppressions and violence done during the elections and which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies including the DSS could not stop.
He said, “We cannot ascribe to DSS, ab initio but the fact remains that you are aware. All the television stations, radio, print media and social media were aware that we raised a flag at the beginning (of the elections) as regards the level of intimidation, maiming, killing of our members and which we established both physically and in terms of written statements.
“But nobody made any statement or checkmated what happened, not to look at the issue of killing that happened in Kaduna. Up till today, nobody has made any statement about that lady that was killed in her house in Kaduna.”
Continuing he said, “Now, we are talking about a state where the people themselves, who were supposed to be protected, the security apparatus did not do their due diligent duty as at when due.
“Because (if they did), all of these would have been nipped in the bud ab initio and, probably, those who have the (chance of space and time) to continue to annihilate and continue to challenge the people publicly without recourse to being scared of the same DSS, we wouldn’t have had such a situation.”
He said, “We were here. We saw what happened in Lagos. MC Olu-Omo was making a statement annihilating and actually ethnically segregating some (people of) certain part of this country from voting in an election.
“If that particular statement was ascribed to my region, for example I am a Hausa man, what would have happened? Probably maybe somebody would have already arrested me for making that particular statement. But that person was not even questioned. What they ended up saying was that, maybe he was just joking,” he raised a point of order.
He knocked the APC’s insinuations by saying that there is no input of Labour Party’s leaders in anything electorate have decided to do in agitating to be given justice to make their freely cast votes count.
“But here we are, the people now have risen up without input of our leaders, in the first instance, and say, “Look, this is our collective matrimony, we have talked top and tail to ensure we vote for the right person and then, here you are, you shutdown the system, denied us our legitimate right pronouncing what the people have ascribed to us.”
“For crying out loud, people travelled from London, America and other parts of this country because INEC gave them hope that their votes would be pronounced and counted accordingly. That did not happen and they have the right to challenge it.
“Whatever you see any individual or a group of people doing, maybe going on demonstration or demanding for their rights, it is part of their democratic setting, it is acceptable by the constitution, it is acceptable within the confine of the law of engagement in democracy. And that is exactly what we simply mean.
“We, as the Labour Party, as the Obidient Movement, did not mobilise anybody. We are currently taking our case to the court and we are expecting the court to perform its duty as at when due.”
“Now, what we are saying is that the right thing should be done in the interest of the people. Democracy must be protected. And I want to say here, those people who perpetrated this heinous crime against the Nigerian people did not think about the consequence of their action that they would put this country in danger or they would put the democracy in danger. That is exactly where the DSS is supposed to come to play.
Asked if he felt the DSS was merely cooking the ember fire or making a case to hold the opposition party responsible for whatever happens, he said: “With all due respect to our DSS which we have enormous respect for, there seems to be a conspiracy against the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We have seen practically where a policeman is standing, somebody was sharing money, which completely negates the provisions of the Electoral Act, nobody arrested that particular person, nobody told him he was doing the wrong thing and that is where we missed this particular process.
“We said it earlier on that those people, who are hell bent on destroying our democracy, in terms of manipulating the system, have already orchestrated their plan pre-election, during the election and after the election. In this case now, they have done what they wanted to do by intimidating the Labour Party, maiming and killing pre-election, during election, they ensured that they took the ballot boxes denying us the actual results being pasted and being announced on real time by INEC. That was during election.
Now, post-election is the issue of saying, “When we have already allocated this particular vote to you, you can go to court.” That is post-election. We are now going to court. At the course of going to court, of course, they will orchestrate all kind of media, they would orchestrate all kind of security apparatus in conspiracy against the people because, the question you want to ask yourself is, “Now, what was the thinking of the security apparatus?”
They prepare this mind that, “Look when they start doing riot or they want to perpetrate riot, what we do is that we will put in some individuals among them and let them be speaking in such a way that we would arrest them and say they are against the state.”
But that will not happen, he said because, “Things have gone beyond that. The people have already known this particular gimmick for long. I have been on the street fighting for the Nigerian people. It has been some of the calling under the tutelage of late Gani Fawehinmi, late Balarabe Musa and Arthur Nwankwo. We fought for democracy, we knew how the security operatives in this country work,” he said.
On allegation against DSS over its silence while Labour Party supporters were being attacked, he was asked whether he ever filed complaint and what was done about it.
Responding he said, “We made open appeal, we made written appeals and all of those ones to the same security offices. Even at the polling units, we had security officers at each of the polling units. I will ask you the same question even though you are at the other side that, have you seen them making arrest of anybody who has done this particular heinous crime? They would tell you they have not seen anybody.
“Then the question is, what is the use of the security men at the polling units? What are they supposed to do? That is their work but they didn’t do it and a lot of money was already being apportioned to those particular security men to ensure that the sanctity of the voting is protected. But that didn’t happen. So, what do you expect the people to do? They are expecting that the state will protect them based on the fact that they are tax payers. But that didn’t happen.
“And now here they (the people) come out to ventilate their anger constitutionally, within the ambiance of the law and now you are making news and then you are intimidating them saying that if they are going to cause trouble….
“They didn’t say they are going to cause trouble. Nobody said he is going to cause trouble. They are only making an agitation. This is our cry. We are expecting the security agents or officers are supposed to be responsible to us as a people not to them as a government.”
Asked about his take on Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s call for healing process and government of national unity and not an Interim National Government he said, “He who seeks for equity must come with clean hands. All we are saying is that we are not satisfied with the process that announced him as the President-elect and we are challenging that particular process.
“This is the problem, if you continue to meander, maneuver and pamper some of those particular mistakes that we continue to make, we would not get it right as a people. So, our presidential candidate has said, ‘If you are to be called Excellency, you must come through an excellent way’,” he said.
