Ijaw youths: APC stockpiling arms, recruiting cultists for Bayelsa polls

A socio-political organisation, Ijaw Youths Democratic Association (IYDI), has raised the alarm that the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State is allegedly stockpiling weapons and recruiting cultists with a view to unleashing mayhem on innocent citizens to rig the December 5 governorship election in its favour.
The group also claimed that APC was plotting to use violence, intimidation and various federal agencies, including security personnel, to rig the election.
The IYDI, in a statement on Thursday by its President, Ebifagha Timothy, and Secretary-General, Tilly Ekaunkumo, stated that the APC and its candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, were neither campaigning nor setting up any machineries in motion, as a party about to go into an election as close as December 5.
The organisation alleged that the state APC was busy recruiting cultists from outside the South-South state, who are already attacking and kidnapping innocent Bayelsans, while security positions are also being attacked, with arms being carted away to create an arms base for the cultists, preparatory to executing their plans of rigging the elections.
The Ijaw Youths Democratic Association said the intention of the APC is to carry out massive rigging of the polls, using the armed cultists and force the election umpire to announce the results in their favour, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) goes to court.
It noted that such acts of lawlessness and brigandage, if allowed to thrive, would be spelling serious doom for the nation’s democracy, stressing that President Muhammadu Buhari, who is a major beneficiary of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s democratic disposition, should rise to the occasion and nip this plan in the bud.
“The only way President Buhari and the APC can demonstrate the change they profess to have enshrined in the polity is for them to ensure that a free, fair and credible election holds, where every eligible voter in Bayelsa State will be allowed to vote; one man, one vote.
“He is a beneficiary of a fair, free and credible election, where the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, even had to call to congratulate him before the final results were announced, so it would be too sad to see him allow an election to be rigged under his watch and so soon too”
The statement also called on the entire people of the state to be alert at all times and not allow themselves or their children and youths to be used to subvert democracy under any guise, stressing that, no Bayelsan, who means well for the state, should fall prey to the undemocratic and selfish manipulations of the APC in the state.