By John Oba
Abuja
Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd), yesterday, charged security agencies to prioritise the security of corps members working as the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) hard-hoc staff, saying they were on the front line of the election.
Gowon gave the charge when he received the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Director-General, Brigadier General, Johnson Olawumi, who paid him a courtesy call in Abuja.
He said: “There are anxieties in various places; we pray that God will touch the mind of the evil intent. What we want in Nigeria is peaceful election, to be free and fair, and I appeal to all Nigerians, especially, the political parties and the leadership of those parties, to make sure that all their supporters vote peacefully in that election.
“It is important that the nation has to have confidence in the chairman of INEC, if we start accusing each other, who do we want to be there, is it your own man or who? It is important to have peaceful election.”
On inciting statements by some supporters, Gowon said it was incumbent on their leaders to restrain them to avoid violence.
He stressed: “I hope they will restrain some of their extreme supporters, who are making extreme statement that enrages the other side, and before we know what is happening, we are in trouble.
“We are great people in every respect, some time the way we behave towards one another is unbecoming.
I was outside the country, but when I came back, the briefing I received made me very sorry. Threat by various groups, accusation and counter accusation, that is not done, we should embrace one another. “We have two good candidates and let it be that it is the people that decide, it is their votes that must count. Let us accept the final decision which is from the INEC, it is the only authority.”
Earlier, the NYSC boss said the scheme had done its best to ensure that the corps members had the requisite knowledge, but needed the inputs of respected people in the society to appeal to people to see corps members as their brothers and sisters.
“We need respected people like you in the society to help us to talk to politicians to talk to their supporters on the need to maintain violence-free poll,” he said.
