OWC Warns Politicians Against Violence

The Executive Secretary of the council who handed down the warning at a press conference held at the Lagos Airport hotel Ikeja, Lagos added that plans to firment trouble in the forthcoming polls should be shelve but all must embrace peaceful conduct before, during and after the elections so as not to truncate this democratic process.

“Way down memory lane, it was the severe contest for the soul of the western region, the realignment of political forces that led to the cross carpeting, fracas in the house and the postponement of elections followed by emergency rule. The first republic did not recover until it was annihilated with coups leading to decades of military rule. The year 1965 is a year of the cursors of the unsavory events

“The electioneering campaign of this year 2015 must neither go the way of operation ‘wetie’ of the sixties or the inferno of 1983 in both instances the republic went under and gave way to military regimes. The south west must not become a theatre of war under any circumstances”, the council said.

The group also posited that politicians without finesse should be ignored at the polls, as the south west does not lack men of worth in the various political parties who can be voted for, instead of men of little morals who lack decorum and who by their utterances and comportment have shown crass rascality, whose conduct evidence criminality and do not possess the visionary disposition, leadership skills and positive attitude.

OWC however advised that politicians from other geo political zones must be accommodated and exposed to the zone’s age long republican system of governance with adequate checks and balances, adding that it is this arrangement that fostered socio political development and growth.

Finally, the group however calls on all sons and daughters to shun violence and all electoral malpractices, saying “this is a clarion call to all descendants of Oduduwa to shun violence and demonstrate political maturity, egalitarianism and sense of mastery in good governance , civil liberty and public participation in civil life with a high degree on commitment and participation in governance by the leaders and populace.”

The group however took a swipe at those groups and individuals who have endorsed as “shallow” but that the field is open to all the contestants for the election and that such did not go down well with the majority of rational thinking descendants of Oodua.

“The endorsement of President Jonathan is shallow as given by elitist few in the cast of the YCE, Afenifere under Pa Fasoranti and a handful of others. The authentic voice of the house of oodua did not and will never endorse a candidate, the field is open to Buhari and Jonathan as we as ten other presidential aspirants. Our accommodating, liberal and urbane disposition should not be taken for granted”, it remarked.