By Bode Olagoke
Abuja
A group of ex-militants from the Niger Delta region on the platform of Niger-Delta Coalition (NDC) and Delta Coalition for Change (DCC) has declared that they would support whoever “wins the coming Presidential election,” adding that none of them would make any trouble if President Goodluck Jonathan loses his re-election bid.
The groups also disagreed with their Ijaw brothers who had threatened unrest “if President Jonathan loses the election,” saying that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
A statement issued in Abuja yesterday by Comrade Young Piero and Peters K. Asuluwa assured Nigerians that major steps to ensure peace had been put in place in the region, even as it also called on “political parties, candidates and their supporters to accept the outcome of the elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).”
He said: “We are assuring Nigerians that there will be no bridge of peace in the Niger-Delta on or before the general election of on the 28th March and 11th of April, as we look forward to a free and fair election, the judiciary has clearly stated that the armed forces has no role in the general election, as such any attempt for military deployment to voting centres is a sabotage to our judiciary.
“We are standing on the part of justice for now that no one has the monopoly to carry out such threat against national security if the government of the day has the peace and sustainability of this great nation at heart. We are one Nigeria, let no one be troubled, pray for peace and free/fair elections, whoever emerges as the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should be given the necessary support from the North, South, West and East of this great nation.
“You will agree with me that Nigerians need a corrupt-free government, our experience this past years made us to understand completely that there is no easy walk out of corruption anywhere many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires; we must be participants to make democracy work, not simply observe.”