An appeal has been made to the youths of Rivers State to resist any attempts by politicians to recruit and use them as bandits for the purpose of disrupting the peaceful conduct of gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections scheduled for April 11, 2015.
The appeal was made by the Grand Patron, Rivers Peace Restoration Agenda and former governorship aspirant, Engineer Beks Dagogo-Jack in view of the forthcoming April 11 elections in Rivers State.
“I appeal to our youths to firmly resist any attempts by politicians to recruit them as bandits to reject being armed with illegally procured sophisticated weapons for the purpose of interfering with the peaceful conduct of the elections and forcefully subverting the right of the people to express their choice at the ballot box,” Dagogo-Jack appealed.
He also urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials at all levels to desist from any conduct capable of undermining the credibility of the election results or injure the sanctity of the people’s franchise.
On security, he reminded the security agencies who are assigned essentially to provide safety for the conduct of the elections that they owe their allegiance not to individual interests but to God and the Nigerian State, tasking them to discharge their constitutional duties without fear and favour.
While encouraging the people of Rivers State to come out on April 11 to vote for candidate of their choice, Dagogo-Jack said: “I most seriously urge my fellow Rivers sons and daughters of voting age who have their PVC’s to all go out and cast your votes massively against the continuation of violence and blood politics in our land; to cast their votes for fairness, equity, justice and the promotion of inter-ethic cooperation in our land.
“I urge us all to use this once in a life time opportunity to change the course of our politics which bears directly on our development for the better so that all our people – youths, elders, the less privileged, our rural poor and generations yet unborn can begin to enjoy the benefits of a state so richly blessed as ours.”
It is his believe that no person, no matter how highly placed, powerful or desperately ambitious should allow the use of violent to subvert the freewill and choice of the electorate.
On what should be done to put the state’s politics on the path of honour Dagogo-Jack said recourse to equity and principles of rotation cannot be ignored.