by SEEDS OF VIOLENCE – OGOJA/YALA BY-ELECTION
The police is right now preventing the PDP from holding a rally on a private property. Read that again: I say, private property.
The police has no powers to do this. The police don’t even have the powers to grant or refuse approval to hold rallies. People who keep applying to the police to get this approval keep sustaining the illegal impression that the police has such powers. They don’t.
Yesterday, a purported APC over N200m-budget for the Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency By-election hit social media. I didn’t comment on that because as a lawyer, I love direct and incontrovertible evidence but there is something also known as circumstantial evidence.
Millions were budgeted to bribe the police in that budget and today the police has been deployed to carry out a grossly illegal assignment. Are you thinking what I am thinking? It takes a lot, including money, to deploy the police like that. If that budget is real, then the owners of that budget truly has the money to fund illegality. Can the police be used against those who has such election budgetary provisions for them? If no, then who is using the police right now? There is something known as circumstantial evidence.
Now, to the crux of the matter.
Whoever or whatever is making the police act this way should be called to order immediately. By this act, the very institution saddled with the responsibility to tame violence is being used by politicians to sow seeds of violence; and when these seeds are allowed to blossom, Cross River State will be the worst for it. This is a state that is yet to recover from the #EndSARS protests that later snowballed into Covid19 palliatives looting.
It’s like the Governor has forgotten the tears he shed for peace to return. We all wept with him. We don’t want a repeat. The Governor is the Choirmaster of politics with ethics and the humanity mantra. It’s time for him to walk his talk.
We can do this politics and hold elections without harassment, intimidation and violence. No one has the right to tell a political party where to hold their rally or flag off their campaign.
Some APC members say it is foolishness to flag off the PDP campaign for Ogoja/Yala By-election in Calabar. Then why are you worried? Why are you afraid? Why not allow them to do their “foolishness” and then bank on it to win the by-elections? Why are you using the police to prevent a “foolishness” that is not illegal?
Stop supporting this, and just dismissing it with “it’s politics”. These seeds of violence you are sowing or encouraging in the name of politics, will swallow you up tomorrow.
– By First Baba Isa (FBI)
