Edo North Senator, Adams Oshiomhole, has appealed to politicians and lawmakers to desist from exploiting unemployed youths to disrupt electoral processes.
Speaking during Wednesday’s Senate plenary, the former Edo State governor also cautioned that Nigeria must remain vigilant against hackers when deploying technology in elections.
Oshiomhole further expressed his opposition to holding the presidential, governorship, and National Assembly elections on the same day, stressing that such an approach could pose logistical and administrative challenges.
“I don’t know if Mr. President will remember. I’m not sure I’m entitled to call the President as a witness, but just to draw your attention to what I said when we were both governors, first, the issue we must work hard to eliminate in our electoral process is violence. We can’t have an election that seems to be a war where young men and not so young, carry AK-47 either to chase away opponents or even to chase away the young men and women who are presiding over election or to take over coalition centers
“On that occasion as a sitting governor, I believe Governor Dickson was also at that meeting, I remember when I finished, I said, AK-47 is not like buying akara on the street[only big men can buy them]. I remember the former governor Amaechi asking me whether I was accusing the governors.
“I think I said something close to ‘yes’ because if you ask the security agencies, they will tell you that after every election, violent crimes increase because the politicians who procured weapons for children who are hungry and pay them a little fee, once the election is over, they are not able to retrieve the weapons, and the weapon are then deployed by these people for violence.
“You can see a strong correlation between the level of criminality, robbery, etc, immediately after the election, because these people have been abandoned since the results have been given, somebody said, I should not accuse governors.
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“I’m not accusing governors now. I’m just recalling what I said before and when I listen to all those who spoke here, everybody spoke in unison, I haven’t heard anyone who says he doesn’t want a transparent election.
“If we all do, not from our lips but from our heart, and we decide to remove violence and convince ourselves that the Nigerian people deserve to hire and fire without fear of favor on Election Day, at least after every four years, correct law. We will have free, fair, transparent elections.
“The beauty of democracy is not the fact that you find yourself occupying an important elective office.
“It is the feeling in your heart that people actually in their free will find you worthy to be their voice and to entrust our collective patrimony in your hands to manage to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number.
“That for me is the beauty. If you achieve it by the game of body, by two rigging or other manipulation, deep in your heart, you know that you are not a happy person.
“Therefore I wish to say the following. First, we should resolve each and every one of us and also collectively, that as elected persons, we as senators, shall not directly or indirectly, secretly or openly abet unemployed people and Armed them to disrupt elections if we form our character, this problem is 90 percent solved.”
