The All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) have been trading blame over gunmen’s attack on the residence of the state Residence Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Gabriel Longpet in the early hours of Friday.
It was reported that the gunmen had stormed the residence of the REC shooting sporadically.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, the APC campaign council pointed accusing fingers at the defeated governorship candidate of the Social Democratic party and called for his arrest and prosecution.
The council’s Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Kingsley Fanwo alleged that the SDP governorship candidate in last month’s governorship election in the state, Alhaji Murtala Ajaka and his party supporters had shown enough evidence that they are violent and should be held responsible for what happened at the residence of the REC.
Fanwo stated that the attack was perpetrated days after the APC campaign council alerted the nation of the plans of SDP thugs to attack the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), adding that “they have finally done their worst by attacking the residence of the Kogi State INEC Commissioner, engaging security agents in a fierce gun battle and eventually burning down some vehicles in the residence and the area”.
Fanwo said: “The same arsonists also had an attempt to burn down the Kogi State Government House foiled by our eagle-eye security agents. The same attempt was foiled at the State APC secretariat in Lokoja”.
According to the APC, the SDP and their collaborators are desperate to destroy some documents in INEC to cover the heist they committed in Kogi East where they allegedly killed APC supporters “and drove them out of collation centres to forge the results that were eventually trumped by the massive votes of Kogites for the governor-elect”.
The campaign council alleged that the SDP candidate and his collaborators were attempting to corrupt certain documents in INEC before handing them to their legal team.
The SDP has however denied any involvement in the attack on the REC’s resident
A statement on Friday in Lokoja, the state capital, by the Director of New Media of Muri/ Sam Campaign Organisation, Mr. David Ijele stated: “We strongly condemn the assassination attempt on the INEC Resident Commissioner for Kogi state, Dr. Hale Gabriel Longpet, which took place in Lokoja at approximately 2:00 am this morning, 1st December 2023″.
According to him, “election should not be treated as a war, nor should it be a matter of life and death. If the election was won fairly and transparently, then the legal process should be allowed to run its course without interference. However, it is unacceptable for thugs, in their high numbers yesterday, to be subject to fake protests, insisting that, on no account should forensic teams not be allowed to do their jobs.
“We are grateful for the timely intervention of the Army, as the man and his family could have been wiped out overnight. The attackers also burnt his vehicles and took other valuables. This kind of behavior is not acceptable in a democratic society,”.
