The leaders of opposition parties in Nigeria on Friday stormed the High Commission of United Kingdom, United States as well as Embassies of the European Union in Abuja, saying that voters have been compromised ahead of the 2023 elections.
They also dropped a petition against the plot to sack the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commision, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and deactivate the BVAS from the commission’s server.
The protesters under the aegis of the Coalition of United Political Parties were led by leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party, Action Alliance, and other opposition parties.
The Spokesperson of the CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere, told journalists that they were demanding “global hunt down of the conspirators and their families with visa ban, assets freeze and arrest where possible.”
The CUPP also demanded firm action against the people who have held Nigeria and its 20 million citizens down.
“They perpetrate themselves in office through the rigging, deny the people of their democratic choice, loot the common treasury and acquire property across the globe. If these properties are seized, they will learn their lessons”, Ugochinyere said.
While calling on all the foreign missions to really keep a closer eye on Nigeria’s transition process, he warned that the plot to destabilise INEC could throw Nigeria into a crisis that was capable of conflagrating, truncating the nation’s democracy and shattering the West African regional peace.
The opposition leaders identified a controversial governor from the South East as being the kingpin of the plot to undermine next year’s election, saying he initiated the underhand moves and sold the idea to the ruling party.
According to him, the intervention of foreign missions was necessary to engender peaceful, acceptable, credible, free and fair elections and also promote national security and the principles of participatory democracy and rule of law.
He expressed the belief that the foreign mission can wield enough pressure on the government to do the right thing and allow INEC to independently conduct the elections.
