2023 Election May Be Catastrophic, Says FJP Chair

National Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Mr. Breakforth Onwubuya, has said unless genuine steps were taken to address the serious lapses witnessed in the last general elections and the just concluded governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states, subsequent elections may be bloodier.

Onwubuya, who spoke in an interview with THISDAY at the weekend, lamented that massive electoral fraud, thuggery, violence and voter apathy were fast becoming the order of the day in the last four years.

He pointed to the incident in which a women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was brutally murdered and burnt during the just concluded governorship election in Kogi State, saying if nothing drastic was done to reorder things the forthcoming election in Edo State may even be bloodier.

“Both PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC) are presently involved in rigging elections. PDP started this evil plan of rigging elections in the country. APC is now trying to outsmart the PDP in rigging, having suffered many years as an opposition party. Most of the top members of APC today were former members of PDP. So they know the arts of the game. Both parties hire thugs and pay them to disrupt elections,” he alleged.

He also accused the two big parties of being behind the recent wave of vote-buying as other parties did not have the money to engage in such practice.

“As a party, we are saying that the way and manner elections are being conducted in Nigeria will not give room for credible leadership in our country. It is usually the highest bidder. The one who has more capacity for violence, thuggery using the military and police to perpetrate electoral fraud now wins elections.