Spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party in Kogi State, Faruk Adejoh-Audu, speaks to DANIEL AYANTOYE on the party’s governorship petition against the All Progressives Congress and the allegation of attack on SDP’s witness
The Kogi State Government has described your allegation of witnesses as baseless and false. What’s your reaction to this?
If you go back through memory lane, you will remember that there was always one person or another complaining of violence induced by the Kogi State Government under the former governor, (Yahaya) Bello, who has now been succeeded by (Usman) Ododo. You will also discover that there is always one person who will come out to say it is a lie, and that there was no attack. In September last year, some soldiers were attacked by thugs carrying arms.
The government released a statement through the commissioner for information and said it was some bandits in soldier uniforms that attacked Bello. Then the Army Headquarters took the matter up; he (Bello) felt threatened, and he was forced to issue another statement to deny the statement of his commissioner for information. This is information that is available everywhere. They attack people and we have the records.
You remember that they went to the house of our Director General a few days before the election, killed three policemen and about five other people, and they got away with it. Some witnesses from Okene who came to the tribunal to testify were attacked for that. Our country is so terrible that people can die for exercising their democratic rights. Witnesses went to court, and they went to them and burnt their houses. The ones living in rented apartments had their property burnt.
But the APC claimed they won the election by a large margin and would not have any reason to attack your witnesses. What is your reaction to this claim?
What has been happening at the tribunal is very clear and we don’t know why the media are not covering it. What is happening at the tribunal is that the Independent National Electoral Commission came to testify, witnesses have testified, and BVAS records have been tendered and accepted as exhibits.
In seven local government areas, the number of registered and accredited voters is inferior to the number of votes returned. For instance, you could see a place where only 30 people were accredited; they would return votes of 500. They (APC) are getting desperate. They didn’t win the election, and they know how.
Are you saying the attacks were to frustrate the tribunal process?
It didn’t start today. In the beginning, when the tribunal ordered that there should be an inspection of materials at INEC office, they unleashed thugs on INEC. Soldiers guarded election materials for more than two weeks, and when they could not guard them anymore, they took them to Abuja under armed guard.
When the tribunal ordered the inspection; that was when they unleashed thugs on INEC. The INEC commissioner in Lokoja and the tribunal secretary were attacked by gunmen. The secretary was beaten up. Whatever happens, we will not give up. We will pursue justice to a logical conclusion. We are up against the system that rewards injustice.
But the state government also said it did not receive any report of a politically stirred crisis. Do you agree with this position?
Are they a police station? How do you report people you know are behind the same attack? In a lot of cases, the criminal who engages in this act does not hide. For instance, when policemen were killed in the house of our director general in November last year, we knew the people who went there and named them, yet, nothing happened until today. The Inspector General of Police has not done anything. The Commissioner of Police who was on the seat when this was happening is still in Kogi as the CP. It is a pathetic situation. Giving up is not an option for us.
Were these incidents reported to the police?
Yes, we reported the incidents to the police. There are several ways to make reports to the police. It can be through petitions which we have done.
What have been the police reactions to the report? Has there been any arrest?
I told you their men were killed during the attack on the house of our director general. What has been the outcome? Did they arrest anyone to that effect? Did you hear any outcome of the investigation? Police are complicit in this matter. I think the moment a governor collects federal allocation, he can refuse to pay salary and ignore state obligations, but give to security people, you can be sure that anything he (the governor) does, nothing will happen.
This is not the first time that the SDP has claimed an attack on its people. Why is this so?
It is so because you have someone who has instituted violence as statecraft. He has done that consistently. We are not claiming. Did we claim that policemen were killed? They were killed and buried. Didn’t they say they were the ones that did it? The Commissioner of Police admitted that he was the one who sent the policemen and that they (policemen) were looking for thugs. Our secretariat was burnt down three times; they didn’t arrest any of the thugs who committed such a crime.
People have been killed. We had a situation where people attacked our candidate in the cause of this election. The security details that followed our candidate repelled the attackers, pursued them to the bush and one of the thugs that was caught in the bush was a serving DSP in the Police Force. What has happened, nothing? There is nothing that has not happened and that cannot happen in Kogi State. All they will just do is issue a statement and deny it.
Despite all the attacks being linked to the APC, the party was declared the winner of the governorship election. This may be interpreted to mean that Kogi people voted for the APC. Don’t you think the people would have voted the ruling party out if they (the people of Kogi State) didn’t want them?
How can they win the election? INEC declared them the winner. They didn’t win the election. Follow up on what is happening at the tribunal, you will see that they couldn’t have won the election. You don’t win an election in that manner. Of course, the case is at the tribunal. Let’s wait and see.
What do you think is the way out?
Honestly, if you ask me, I don’t know except that Kogi State and Nigeria should be a place where truth and justice will prevail. What we try to do by contesting the election is to ensure that we have the opportunity to provide good governance and save the souls of our people. That was the reason why we contested the election, but the election was manipulated by certain persons in INEC, and Bello has been doing everything possible so that justice is not served.
