9th July, 2010
The Action Congress, (AC) has declared in Ado-Ekiti that it would not contest any election result at Elections Petition Tribunal in the aftermath of the forthcoming 2011 general polls.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made this known at the South West meeting of the party held at the campaign office of its gubernatorial candidate in the 2007 elections in Ekiti, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
He said whatever that needed to be fought or protested would be done this time around, right at the polling booth.
Mohammed said a situation where a candidate that won an election in controversial circumstances is allowed to stay in such illegal office for nearly a whole tenure and the petition drags is no longer acceptable to the party.
According to him, apart from adopting the policy of one man one vote as common slogan, party members would be sensitized on the need to protect their votes as well as guard against daylight electoral fraud that greeted the last exercise.
Mohammed disclosed that the party was more than ready for next years elections, saying the party’s guidelines preparatory to the exercise would be released on or before next week.
The AC Chief spokesman hinted that the national caucus of the party had met and adopted what he called “National Policy on Youth” under which only youthful aspirants between the age of 45-50 will emerge as its presidential candidate.
He also said that youth leaders of the party will fall within age of 18-30, and maintained that no candidate of the party will emerge through fraud or influence of any godfather either at ward, Local Government, State or National level except through open and transparent primaries.