•Dr. Sam Amadi
Ahead of Saturday gubernatorial election in Edo State, Dr. Sam Amadi, political analyst and Director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts has said that arresting political leaders of a party a few days to polls is election interference.
Amadi who spoke on Arise TV yesterday noted that there’s need for minimal interference of security agencies in an election for it to be credible, stressing that short of a real crime, any attempt to arrest political leaders of a party a few days to election, except for a crime that cannot wait, is election interference.
He said, “Short of real urgent crime that cannot wait, any arrest of political leaders can be interference because essentially, you’re decapitating them and so perhaps a malicious or mischievous way in which the party in the state, which feels that the police is perhaps working with the opposition, All Progressives Congress (APC), the Federal Government to wrest power from them.
“This is real in Nigeria politics because of the fact that our institutions are not independent in their behaviours.
“We’ve seen several elections, not just this election, the off season elections, the report about security involvement has been almost, if not despicable, it has been intolerable the way they have been part of allegations here and there about manipulations, involvements, aiding and abetting, sometimes being frontal in election manipulations, intimidation of voters and all that.
““This is the legacy that we’ve not been able to overcome, which is to have a security system basically not beholden to any of the political leaders. Again, it’s difficult for the Nigeria security to suddenly develop independence in elections if they’re not that independent in managing their mandates.
“So, if the security officials in the state can arrest you because you wrote against the governor in expressing your freedom of speech and the Commissioner of police or IGP can arrest you and put you away for two weeks because the governor is not happy with you, there’s no reason to assume that when a governor is about to lose an election that the same police cannot be used to manipulate election.
“So, to me, you might want to sound politically correct but there’s no evidence why you might think that the police without being constrained, without being forced to do that would be fair. Whether it is for APC or PDP, it doesn’t matter. It is difficult from evidence to assume they’ll play fair.”
