Re-run: Obi condemns rape of democracy in Kano

…Says what happened in Kano is license to violence

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi has described as a rape of democracy, the scandalous and brigandage witnessed in last Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Kano state.

Obi said that what all democratic watchers saw in Kano state re-run election last Saturday, amounts to licensing the youth to engage in violence and setting a very dangerous precedent.

“We are now institutionalizing thuggery and rigging as a process of coming into power which is a very dangerous precedent for our country,” he said.

The vice presidential candidate said that proceeds in the name of results from what happened in Kano makes the entire electoral process ridiculous and shameful.

According to a statement from his media office, Obi remarked that the police who mobilized top officers and men to Kano state to secure the state during the election and allowed political thugs to control the process, owe Nigerians and election observers a lot of explanations on what happened.

He also questioned the integrity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for being quick to recognize and acknowledge election results from a process where machetes welding miscreants took charge of the process.

Obi warned that by what went on in Kano at the weekend, “we are dangerously bequeathing to this society, a trend that is bound to consume not only our youth, but the entire country.”

The former Anambra state governor said that Nigeria further ridiculed herself and made the country a laughing stock for thinking that the kind of process witnessed in Kano at the weekend will produce leadership that can grow the state.

Obi described as regrettable, the unnecessary loss of quality heads in the general elections and mentioned in particular the killing of a professor in Benue state which he described as most painful.

“If India with over 800 million voters can conduct election without losing such caliber of people, if President Buhari and APC could come into power in 2015 without such senseless loss of lives, why should this be the case now?” he asked.

Obi finally prayed for the souls of the departed and fortitude for the relations and friends of those who lost their lives.