17th March, 2015
The Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, has proven many right that it is out to do the hatchet job for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and President Goodluck Jonathan, follwing its rampage on the streets of Lagos on Monday. The manner members of the group wielded guns and machetes and destroyed billboards of the All Progressives Congress on Ikorodu Road left much to be desired.
Matters were made worse by the protection the group was given by soldiers and policemen while the destruction was going on. The group was claiming to protest that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, should be removed. No patriotic Nigerian would wish that Jega should go at this time, except those that have a sinister agenda; and that is to scuttle the entire electoral process less than two weeks to the elections.
The syndicated protests by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB and OPC led by Gani Adams have clearly shown the desperate efforts by the PDP to cling to power at all costs. Sponsors of these ethnic militias don’t care if the country goes up in flames.
Why should a government choose to create confusion and chaos in order to sabotage an election it has funded with billions of naira? Does it mean OPC is trying to justify the hefty oil pipeline protection contract it got from the Federal Government by destroying APC billboards in Lagos and attacking innocent people going about their legitimate duties?
These lawless acts that are being sponsored by the Federal Government may backfire in the long run as Nigerians are waiting to decide the fate of the party they prefer in the coming elections. Law enforcement personnel that ought to have arrested the gun-wielding OPC members and ptotected members of the public against attacks were the same people giving them protection while they were on the rampage in Lagos on Monday. This is how low the country has sunk under President Jonathan.
We are solidly behind Nigerians who have vowed to remain resolute in spite of the provocations by armed political thugs and hired ethnic militias that want to prevent the general elections from holding. These detractors shall fail in their schemes.