…calls for free, fair and transparent elections in Ekiti

A former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu has condemned in clear terms the attack on governor Fayose as it is serious injustice for a serving governor who is under immunity to be attack in the Government House by security operatives.

Speaking at Nigeria 2019 TV programme on Arise TV, Mantu who expressed his displeasure and calling as unfortunate the current events playing out in Ekiti said, “Ekiti is history waiting to happen and we pray it does not happen so”.

“In 1993 when Ekiti was part of Ondo state, a man was sponsored by the then ruling party NPN which I was a member at that time and they wanted to do what these people want to do now; to impose an unpopular candidate on the people, people resisted and there was mayhem. I hope that history will not repeat itself”.  

“I pray that the government of the day will take every possible measure to ensure that there are free, fair and transparent elections; otherwise I know that what happened before may likely repeat itself”.

Mantu added that he thinks what happened at the Ekiti rally was out of desperation “You’re aware that people are being killed in their hundreds in many parts of this country every day and they never sent 30,000 policemen to go and solve those problems but they have now sent 30,000 policemen to one state election. We’re now seeing clearly, signs of things that will happen on Saturday”.

He called on the authorities to take necessary actions against those behind the attack on the governor of Ekiti State. “The policemen that were sent there were sent by someone, so whatever action that they take, whether it was sanctioned by who sent them or not the person who sanctioned them must take responsibility. What happens to those people or the actions taken against them will determine whether they were sent by someone or that they were renegade policemen. If we see those people being dealt with properly then we may now probably say they did not get orders from above, but so far nobody has been arrested among those policemen”, Mantu said.

Advising the government of the day, he reiterated the fact that we must learn from our ugly history and ensure that everything is done properly as it was not easy “for some of us fight for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, some of us have paid our dues and that is why we’re jealously to make sure that democracy is not derailed again, because it is better than even the best military administration. People who are today in charge should realise that we didn’t get democracy on a platter of gold. Some of them came and are reaping from what we have suffered for therefore they should be fair to those of us who put our lives on the line for us to have this democracy”, he said.