Buhari’s ballot box threat aimed at scaring voters – Sowore

The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, says President Muhammadu Buhari’s threat to ballot box snatchers is aimed at scaring away voters on election day.

Sowore said if Buhari was sincere about stopping electoral malpractice, he would have focused on the sponsors of ballot box snatchers and not the actors only.

The AAC candidate said this during an interview with our correspondent on Wednesday.

The activist said Buhari had shown that he was still a dictator as he made no mention of arresting and prosecuting ballot box snatchers but went ahead to suggest killing.

He said if the President was really serious about stopping electoral malpractice, he would have stopped his part from engaging in vote-buying.

Sowore said, “General Buhari is clearly still a military dictator at heart. Ballot box snatching is a terrible offence, but how could anyone ask for an offender to be killed without recourse to the law? Are there no courts? Shouldn’t an offender be charged to court first?

“It is ironic that the same person who is quick to ask for ballot box snatchers to be killed, has no problems with heading a party that engages in massive vote-buying and rigging as we saw in Ekiti and Osun.

“While Buhari called for the ballot box snatchers to be killed, what about the people who sent them to snatch the ballot boxes? What about the politicians who paid them to cause chaos at the polls? By raising the spectre of violence at polling centres and encouraging law enforcement agencies to shoot during elections, the President is essentially scaring people away from the polls.

“He knows that ballot rigging has been a sad but persistent feature of Nigerian elections. This threat is not really directed at ballot box snatchers, but a deliberate attempt to scare people away from the polls. I call on all Nigerians not to be deterred or scared away from the polls.”

The Sahara Reporters publisher, who also lambasted the Independent National Electoral Commission for postponing the polls, said he already knew INEC would delay the elections and he had prepared adequately.

– Punch