April 11, 2015 – National leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu has lamented over allegations that the Commissioner of Police, Lagos, Mr. Kayode Aderanti was relegated to position of Area Command and Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG, Zone 2 Mr. Joseph Mbu posted as Commissioner for Elections.
Tinubu who was speaking after casting his vote in Alausa said the new posting is suspicious.
“They announced Monday last week that AIG has been attached to Ogun. Yesterday, we heard in the news that Commissioner of Police has more or less been relegated to Area Commander and the AIG now commissioner of police in charge of election.
“That smells rat. That is not good enough for confidence building process. If there is no written order or instruction, it shouldn’t be possible for anybody, no matter highly placed, to make an oral positing of the police”, he said.
Here, throughout the week before the election, there are lots of gunshots across the state. That is scary to the people, that is why they don’t even come out. That is the method of rigging, because you are not popular. If you are, you will want the crowd to be out to make their choice. The abuse of power must stopped, and this is by commonsense revolution”, he said.
He attributed low turnout of voters in the election to reports of violence in the last 10 days which he described as barbaric adding that it must be removed from politics.
He however attributed the low turn out to violence in the last 10 days.
“You are talking about low apathy, where people didn’t come to vote, when violence has been around in the last 10 days or so, when there is escalation of killings and lives of people are threatened every hour. That is not good enough. It doesn’t reflect that we are disciplined and civilized. If the citizen’s police or citizen’s army are now turned into army or police of one man in power, then the country is heading for crisis. For every action, there is a reaction
“Election is about people. It is government of the people, for the people and by the people, not by the process of gun and war and violence. It is power by all means necessary that is the cause of the violence. We have to remove that. Nurture the institution of democracy; apply the rule of law. The attempt to be governor or to control state should be derived from the people to choose their leader within a specific period of time”, the former governor said.
