Our field officers, on election monitoring duties, Bayelsa state, reported to us that shots were fired at the INEC office in Yenagoa. While it is regrettable that a normal ritual that takes place every four years has been balkanized by interest groups and reduced to a question of whether Nigeria will continue to exist as an indivisible corporate entity.
This condemnable act bears all the hallmarks of an attempt to disrupt and discredit the whole election process, which is calculated to intimidate the masses of our people into not performing their civic duties. It is clearly an attempt to deride the progress made so far in our electoral system, which has come at great cost to the nation.
We call on the security agencies to continue to be vigilant and strategic in keeping the peace as they did earlier today and call on the people to go out and cast their votes for their preferred candidates in the elections. The people should not hesitate to notify the security agencies of any suspicious movements in their neighbourhoods and Law enforcement agencies must bring the full weight of the law to bear on election offenders with utmost respect for the rules of engagement and the Nigerian constitution.
The political actors must correct course and desist from further heating up the polity and expending lives over ambitions that are transient. The unity of Nigeria is sacrosanct and must be defended by all in the interest of the long-term stability of the African continent. After the elections there is a need for all relevant stakeholders to come together and review the process with a view to improving on it and all political actors committing to ensuring a smoother process in future elections.
SHOOTING INCIDENT AT BAYELSA INEC.OFFICE: ALL HANDS MUST BE ON DECK TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY
