2019: Don’t heat up the polity, Gen Abdusalam tells politicians

Former Head of State, Gen. Abdusalam Abubakar has warned politicians across party levels not to heat up the polity ahead of Tuesday rescheduled elections in some units in the inconclusive Osun State governorship election.

Gen. Abubakar who is the chairman of National Peace Committee, said this during a meeting with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the security agencies and the representatives of the registered political parties ahead of the 2019 general elections held at the Transcorp Hotel, Abuja

Briefing the journalists after the first meeting with the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu and the security agencies, he said that the meeting was to ensure that the politicians do not heat up the polity ahead of the 2019 general elections.

“As you are all aware, we are approaching 2019 elections and already you are very much aware how the polity is being heated as a result of which we have decided to step up our action to ensuring that there is peace in the country”, he said, stressing that the politicians need to play by the rule of the game, while the security agencies and INEC also need to play their role accordingly.

The committee later met with the registered political parties, where they listened to their complaints and also appealed to them to make sure that politics is played without bitterness.

He stated: “All in all we have had a briefing and then later this afternoon we are going to meet with the political parties. The INEC chairman has told us they are 91 registered political parties.

“As you are very much aware, if there is no peace in any country, there will be no country at all, so this is the essence of this meeting to ensure that we are all on the same page to ensure that there is peace in our country.”

A member of the committee, and the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Mathew Kukah, revealed that the entire members of the committee were pleased with the efforts of INEC with the way the chairman presented the commission’s activities.

Kukah noted: “It does seem very clear to me that there is a great improvement on the way that things have gone.

“This election by the grace of God ought to be a better improvement from the 2015 election. Our hope is that elections after this we will also see a greater improvement because as we are moving forward you are correcting all the mistakes.”

“It is our greater joy that we are no longer complaining about open ballot box snatching; now we are complaining about vote buying now. I believe that from what we had the chairman saying, this is not a one person job, it belongs to all of us Nigerians but some political belongs with all of us Nigerians.”