By Paul Efiong
The National Chairman of Action Alliance, one of the foremost political parties in Nigeria Barr. Obidiche Udeze has declared that nothing short of free, fair and credible elections in 2019 will be acceptable by Nigerians.
Barr. Udeze, who is also the Secretary Contact and Mobilization Committee of Coalition of United Political parties (CUPP), stated this in Abuja in an exclusive interview with our reporter and called on international community to dispassionately monitor the 2019 general elections to avert the subversion of the will of the masses.
“Let me use this medium to call on the international community to come in and monitor our general elections as Nigerians won’t take anything that will go against their conscience this time, we don’t want violence,” he appealed.
He disclosed that the CUPP has deployed all the necessary machinery to detect rigging in the forth coming elections; and advised Nigerians not compromise their future by selling their votes.
“Nigerians must wise up, they should shine their eyes. The dye has been cast.
Please vote according to your conscience and do not mortgage your future because of money. If they offer you money, collect and vote according to your conscience,” he advised.
He expressed reservations on the ability of the electoral umpire, the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct free and fair elections come 2019.
“As a group, that is CUPP, we don’t have confidence in INEC. I make bold to tell you that we are still investigating them because of what happened in Ekiti and Osun states.
“The Chairman of INEC has passion for transparent, fair and credible elections, but that is not enough. What of those that work under him? What about the staff?
“We don’t have any problem with the chairman of the commission but the staff. Are they ready to sale out their conscience for money? I want to assure Nigerians that the mechanism we have put in place to checkmate rigging in the forth coming elections as well as check violence is something else. We will not begin to talk more on this now but we always advise the umpire to play according to the rule, if not the strategy we put in place would swallow them up.
