Ignore Calls to Postpone Ondo Election, CNPP Tells INEC

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to heed calls for the postponement of the Ondo State governorship election.

The organisation said “after a careful analysis of the political temperature of the state, it came to the inevitable conclusion that the gubernatorial election scheduled for Saturday should go ahead as planned.”

In a statement issued wednesday by its new Acting National Secretary, Olawale Okunniyi, CNPP said necessary condition does not exist to warrant such appeals for suspension of the poll.

“It is our considered opinion that the material conditions upon which the postponement of elections could be predicated does not substantially exist in the Ondo State case; therefore INEC should go ahead and conduct the gubernatorial election as scheduled.

“CNPP, for the umpteenth time, wishes to call on Nigerian political parties to imbibe the crucial tenets of internal democracy so as to harmoniously elect candidates at every election instead of over heating the polity and putting our fledgling democracy at self foisting harm.

“As the intra party wranglings and the do or die tussle heating the Ondo politics arena from the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the peace mechanism procured by the Alliance for Democracy, AD could have been unnecessary if internal democracy has been consummated in our politics.

“For it is quite painful and nauseating to note the unwarranted burden always imposed on our judiciary and the INEC by mindless political gladiators who refused to put their acts together by venturing into unbridled political harakiri,” it said.