Forum seeks violence-free elections
he All Governorship Candidates Forum of Nigeria (AGCFN) has called for violence-free elections in the country, saying Nigerians cannot afford the Sudan or Libya experience.
The call came from a delegation of the forum led by its chairman and Kwara State gubernatorial candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Tiamiyu Kolapo Kamaludeen, during a courtesy visit to Media Trust headquarters in Abuja yesterday.
The Director General, Engr. Nwosu Emmanuel, who spoke on behalf of the group, said Nigeria could not afford a violent election and assured on efforts to mobilise the members who are governorship candidates of various political parties in Nigeria to identify themselves with the vision of peaceful, safe and non-violent elections next month.
Noting that governorship candidates were in the best position to promote non-violent elections since they operate at the level of direct contact with party supporters, Engr. Emmanuel said their advocacy was in pursuance of immediate awareness on the commitment to the recent accord signed by presidential candidates on non-violence in the coming elections.
Nwosu said the accord was based on morals as it had no legal backing, and that necessitates mobilising stakeholders including the media to spread the nonviolence campaign to the grassroots.
“We don’t want the Sudan or Libya experience here. Everybody has seen what happened there where politics was allowed to degenerate. If we want to split, let us split peacefully, war should be the last thing we should witness. But the day Nigeria splits is when we will see the real agony, so it’s better we remain as we are,” he said.
Although the forum was formed for the 2015 elections, the delegation said it looks beyond the election and that its observations would form a basis for a law by the National Assembly on prohibition of election violence.
PPA governorship candidates on the delegation said their pursuit for power was to bring integrity and godliness to governance, as the present leaders lack these qualities.