Maltreated election observers threaten to go to court
Some election
observers have accused the special assistant to the Kwara State governor
on Electoral Matters, Musa Abdullahi, of maltreating them and have
resolved to go to court for justice.
According to the
leader of the Committee for Democracy and Right of the People, Abdul
Ganiyu Saheed Olaide, their attackers had approached them at the Ajikobi
Ward where the governor, Bukola Saraki, had also voted asking for their
identification and later ordered that they be beaten up.
Mr Abdullahi,
however, denied the allegation, saying “I cannot do such a thing. Not
me.” He refused to make comment further on the issue.
The President of
the Observer group claimed that four of them: Abdulsalam Abdulfatai,
Ibrahim Lukman Bukola, and Akaje Ibrahim were beaten up and had their
clothes torn. “All our cameras, laptops and money were also looted.”
Set for the court
“They should know
that this cannot be swept under the carpet. The commissioner of police
invited me this morning and was pleading with us to forget it. But, to
forget what? I was treated like an animal and treated like a thief. Even
if a thief had been caught, would they treat him like that?
“Someone came to
tell us that they were thumb printing for PDP and that we should come
and catch them. We told the person that we were just observers but that
we can see what the situation is. So we went there, only to be turned
into a fake observer, despite that ID cards on us and we were
mercilessly beaten up,” Mr Abdullahi said.
According to Mr
Abdulfatai, who is also a student leader in a university, “We are
talking with our lawyers and we are going to see to the end of this. We
are just observers and do not have anything to do with any of the
political parties. So we don’t know why we were beaten up and if not for
God who saved us, the government thug could have killed us.” Dabo
Ezekiel, the Police Command spokesperson, however, told NEXT that he was
not aware of any meeting between the group and the police commissioner
and asked them to be calm and follow the path of justice.
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