FOLLOWING the defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP at the last Presidential election after sixteen years in government, strong indications have emerged that the ruling All Progressives congress, APC had literally caged elected officials on the platform of the PDP.
It was gathered that with some of the cases still pending at the Election petition Tribunals and the Court of Appeal, most PDP elected lawmakers especially at the Senate and House of Representatives who ordinarily would have been very vocal as those in opposing, lampooning the ruling APC have kept mum.
According to a source, except some elected persons under the PDP like governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, many for fear of being hunted using the courts or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC against them.
A source disclosed that with the way and manner the Court of Appeal was going with election cases, it was better for them to remain silent and continue with the job of lawmaking, just as some cited cases of Benue ruling where there was call for a re-run in Benue South Senatorial district to hurt former Senate President David Mark who has not even criticized the present government, another rerun in Abia North where Senator Mao Ohuabunwa has been representing as well as Uche Ekwunife, Anambra Central, George Sekibo, Rivers East, among others.
A senator who spoke with Saturday Vanguard said, “ the rulings in the Courts to frustrate elected PDP law makers were alarming, look at former Senate President David Mark whose case was not with the figures, but dates, look at Anambra Central, look at Abia North, look at the Taraba ruling and the removal of Senator George Sekibo, we are worried and the ruling party wants to cage us, we are afraid to talk, it may be the turn of another person. It is better to keep quiet in this case. Look at Rivers, look at Kogi, Bayelsa, we are afraid.”
Meanwhile, it was gathered yesterday how former President Goodluck Jonathan’s men bungled the Bayelsa State gubernatorial election, with alleged plans to do same in Rivers State.
The Bayelsa poll was seen as an opportunity to get a platform to ‘teach’ the APC a lesson.
According to a source, the whole idea was hatched by ex-militant leaders who have been beneficiaries of the former president and have been de-robed of what some persons described as their larger than life posture, and no more influence at the centre, just as it was said that a very influential ex- militant who was very powerful then and now being hunted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC was involved, with his accounts frozen by the Federal Government over alleged financial dealings with links to some past officials of the government who are now under watch and one of them now undergoing trial.
The source noted that a deadlier scenario might play out in Rivers State once the governor’s appeal is lost and a fresh election ordered to hold and the implication would be a looming fresh Niger Delta struggle that might deplete the nation’s economy.
According to the source, one of them, a former Special Adviser was yet to honour an EFCC summon, in abroad on medical grounds, but the government was on his trail to a neighbouring West African nation where he was said to have donated handsomely to the election project of the incumbent president.
The propaganda being peddled has been that APC was anti-Ijaw and that explains why the federal government was going after Ijaws who served under Jonathan, however, the real truth is the loss of influence and the issue of the frozen accounts and the investigation of allies of the leader of ex- militants.
VANGUARD
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