Coalition raises alarm on plot to truncate 2019 polls

Chief Dennis Aghanya (Centre) flanked by other members of the coalition during the press conference

By Ochiaka Ugwu

A coalition of 24 Civil Society Organizations under the auspices of United for Good Governance and Electoral Integrity in Nigeria has raised alarm on the plot by desperate politicians, compromised judicial authorities, unscrupulous personnel of the electoral umpire and hostile foreign actors to destabilize the 2019 elections. The coalition informed that the administration’s prosecution of many highly influential members of the political class for looting the public treasury when they held public office with others forced to pay back huge sums of money in revenues stolen through shady companies and business practices rattled members of the political class which want to wreck all to prevent nemesis.

In a press conference addressed in Abuja Monday by the Executive Secretary of Anti-Corruption and Research Based Data Initiative (ARDI), Chief Dennis Aghanya on behalf of the coalition noted that this political class have responded with curious political realignments to strengthen the aforesaid vicious conspiracy whose fulcrum consists of the recruitment through blackmail or bribery or both, of compromised judicial officers, unscrupulous staff of INEC and a high stakes game of thrones into the 2019 Elections.

According to the statement, “The Judiciary: We may recall that the present administration undertook a cleansing exercise of the Judiciary sometime ago, raiding residences and making arrests, including some of the highest ranking judicial officers in the nation.

“Some of these judicial officers have since been arraigned in various courts; some discharged by the courts, those found guilty penalized accordingly while others are still facing trials.

“Sadly, some of the biggest fishes were let off the hook then in what we discovered to be a shout-out to the self-same insular sentiments which have so grotesquely distorted the administration of justice in our nation and stunted her growth and development.

“Some of them were later promoted within the Judiciary despite the existence of dossiers full of evidence uncovered by not one, but several investigating agencies, disclosing how they horribly broke their Judicial Oaths and abused the sacredness of the judicial office over the course of their careers.

Aghanya flanked by other members of the coalition which include, Aliyi Jibrin of the Source of Hope Foundation, Hajia Hidayat Marshal of Nigeria Young Women Political and Policy Forum (NYWPF), Raymond Enoch Nyayiti of Centre for Environmental Development (CCED), Mabel Onwuemele of Women of Purpose Development Education and Development, Mr. Ogalagu Amaechi of Ambassadors for Accountability Initiative, Emeka Betgram of (PENDNANT) and Mrs. Betty Olatunde NACCRAN informed the conspirators have also recently spent weeks recruiting highly skilled hackers, mainly from Asia and Europe, acquiring sophisticated equipment and setting up a base of operations in a popular Middle East destination with the sole aim of taking control of INEC online and uploading fictitious results in real time as voting goes on across the nation on election day.