Kogi Guber: APC says SDP is responsible for attack on tribunal secretary.
By Naomisophyblog
The opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) has been charged by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council in Kogi State with masterminding the alleged assault on Mr. Mike David, the secretary of the election petition tribunal.
Mike David, the secretary of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal, was reportedly attacked on Monday night by thugs who appeared to be affiliated with a specific political party.
However, in response to the news, Kingsley Femi Fanwo, the director of media and publicity for the Kogi APC Campaign Council, claimed in a statement on Tuesday that the accusation was a last-ditch effort by the SDP in Kogi State and ethnic jingoists to portray the state as dangerous by planning fictitious attacks on Mike David, the secretary of the tribunal.
He claimed that they intend to conceal their previously revealed intentions to file a petition against the election on November 11th outside of the window permitted by the Electoral Act.
In the statement, Fanwo recalled that a few attorneys from the state’s three senatorial districts had informed the public early on Monday morning about the SDP’s and its governorship candidate’s purported covert plot to file their petition through the backdoor and backdate it in order to evade the Electoral Act’s requirements.
The statement read, “The SDP’s twisted strategy and manufactured lies are easily discerned by the astute, since the alleged attack on the Tribunal Secretary coincided with the revelation of their questionable, anti-democratic scheme.”
“Why wasn’t he attacked before December 3, 2023, at midnight, when the 21-day window closed?” Why did the SDP learn about the alleged attack first? How could they have known that, at the time of his purported attack, he was working on their petition? Why has the SDP positioned itself as the Secretary’s defender? One cannot deceive the public. The populace is fully aware of what is taking place.
“We have persistently urged the state’s security authorities to respond to numerous petitions filed with them, denouncing the political crimes being committed by the SDP and its goons.
They carry out horrible acts, murder defenseless people, incite hatred in the state with hate speech motivated by a rejected ethnic agenda, and then use irrational propaganda to make victims out of us. Without making any arrests, they even openly accuse the security services of committing crimes.
The security agencies’ inaction in the face of the obvious atrocities being carried out by these desperate politicians and ethnic jingoists has given their thugs more confidence to attack the residence of the Resident Electoral Commissioner overseeing Kogi State, something that has never before occurred in our beloved state’s history. And now, they have written a “dead on arrival” script for the Tribunal Secretary’s attack, together with their criminal allies.
“As we write, the lawyer, who spearheaded the efforts of others to reveal the SDP’s plans for backdoor filings, is facing threats from the SDP camp—even on public forums—and the security agencies have been notified of this. They attack when SDP makes threats. They intimidated the resident electoral commissioner in this way, and then they carried out a vicious attack on his home. The law must provide protection to those who operate within the bounds of the rule of law.
The APC in Kogi State, however, urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to order the Department of State Services and the Police to stop at nothing to capture the criminals terrorizing the state and waging a pointless war against democracy while they awaited the security agencies’ reports on the actual state of affairs.
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“Yahaya Bello, CON, the state governor, established a strong security base. For more than seven years, the state provided no hiding spot for criminals. He said, “At this point, we cannot sacrifice these widely acknowledged victories on the political slab.”
