Akwa Ibom State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Obong Paul Ekpo, Tuesday, July 28, 2015, raised alarm over the spate of harassment of its members and the manner the Department of State Services, DSS, was aiding and abetting the opposition at the venue of the electoral tribunal currently sitting in Abuja.
Ekpo said in a statement, “We wish to alert the nation and the international community about the undisguised display of partisanship by agents of the DSS at the electoral tribunal currently sitting in Abuja. Our members and agents have been hounded, harassed, and threatened by agents of the DSS.
“The State Resident Electoral Commissioner has been equally hounded and unfairly singled out for interrogation. We want to put it on record that what the opposition is doing in Akwa Ibom and Rivers states is against the spirit, ethos and values of democratic norms and traditions. Nigeria is not a one-party state and any attempt by the opposition to use the state security at the centre to subvert the will of the good people of Akwa Ibom State as expressly given on March 28 and April 11 respectively will be resisted squarely.”
The state party chairman said, that his party men will refuse to be conquered or cowed and will protect the votes that were freely given at the last governorship election.
Noting that the All Progressives Congress, APC, has been floundering at the tribunal and is looking for whatever clutch it can hold on to, Ekpo said their witnesses thoroughly weakened their case when they spoke the truth and kept peace with their conscience and creator by puncturing the central narrative of the APC which they have been alleging that there was no election in Akwa Ibom State.
“The APC witnesses one after the other contradicted the central plank of their argument by stating that there was indeed election in the state, and that they themselves, had participated freely in the exercise.”
The state PDP chairman said that President Muhammadu Buhari had in his meeting with the President of the United States, Barack Obama last week, in Washington DC, also told the world that that Nigeria had a free, fair and credible election and went ahead to thank the United States Government for its support of the exercise.
President Buhari appointed Lawal Daura, his kinsman from his hometown in Katsina on July 2, as head of the DSS after firing Ita Ekpeyong. Daura was recalled from retirement as he had retired from the service of the DSS when he reached the mandatory age of 60 according to the Civil Service rules of Nigeria.
