SAN FRANCISCO, February 18, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that anybody who attempts to snatch ballot boxes in disrupt of the forthcoming elections will be doing so at the expense of his own life.
The President issued the warning at the opening of the meeting of the Caucus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja on Monday to deliberate on the postponement of the elections.
Buhari said: “Anyone who decides to snatch ballot boxes; this will be the last the persons will attempt to do.”
He warned that security forces, including soldiers, have been put on the alert to carry out the task of securing free and fair elections.
“I want Nigeria to be respected. I am not afraid of the elections because I went round all the states.”
Buhari said he would not encourage rigging because he campaigned vigorously, visiting all the states and has the assurances that he had done well in his campaign.
He also said that security forces and the army have been directed to man all soft targets declaring that the elections should be conducted peacefully in all the 176,000 polling stations.
He also directed governors in states controlled by APC’s governments to deploy committed APC members to man all the polling units and chairmen and governorship candidates of in other states should ensure same.
After the elections, he said, the government would want to know what happened that caused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to postpone elections.
“What is the need accepting incompetence? The Constitutions and law protect INEC but they should take us for granted.
“The National Assembly and the government did all they could to provide for INEC, therefore we do not understand what has happened.
“We will need to go into details of what caused the postponement of the elections,” he stated.
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