Edosomwan: Why UK, US congratulated Buhari

The presidential candidate of Nigeria Democratic Congress Party, (NDCP), in the recent election, Dr. Johnson Edosomwan, in this interview says the United Kingdom and United States of America merely congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari because of their national interests

What is your view of the recent presidential election?

It is the worst assault on democracy in the history of Nigeria. I have never seen something like this. People were killed, our votes prevented from happening, they destroyed our votes, polling booths were scattered, military were shooting people. It is the worst that I have ever seen in the history of democracy.

How exactly did you think it was going to be?

I thought it was going to be very peaceful and we would thereby giving us a chance, but what they did was that they threw all my votes away and all they were showing in INEC was just forged data that didn’t make any sense at all. There was shameful rigging, killing of people and there were prepared ballot papers with Buhari’s name on it. It was a big shame.

Where did all these happen?

It happened all over the country actually. You can take Kogi…even there was no election in some places in Kogi. In my state, Edo State, I went to the polling booth, nine of the polling units had no materials to conduct the election and then, I had to call INEC to come and sort things and before they showed up, it was about 1pm. That was how it is everywhere and Nigeria looked really bad in the eyes of the world.

But are you aware the US, UK as well as other countries have congratulated President Buhari which means they certified the election credible?

US and UK can congratulate him but they did not do so because they killed my people and stole the votes. How will you be congratulating someone whose re-election came with killing of his people? The US interest is different from mine. My interest is in the Nigerian people and the US or UK interest is different from mine because they may be interested in oil; they may be interested in gas, but I am interested in the lives of Nigerians to make sure they have quality life and protected but killing them is nothing to congratulate anybody for.

Where do we go from here if the same international communities we were banking on certified the election as credible and you still feel otherwise?

We have to be very careful because all those election observers, I didn’t see a single one of them. I have traveled all over the country, I didn’t see them anywhere. Some of them are here on vacation or some are just sitting down in a conference room and write the report because I didn’t see any one of them. May be two or three have done whatever they are supposed to do but I didn’t see single one of them. How can you say this is a credible election when people were killed, ballot boxes snatched and you were not there to see them? It is just laughable as far as I am concerned.

Are you also aware APC accused PDP of some electoral malpractices?

Whoever did it should be held accountable. I am not saying this to condemn APC or PDP but the environment that was set by APC created all of the violence. It was wrong and I stand by that statement. There is no way you can explain the killing and shedding of blood to preserve somebody to the world, it is totally unspeakable. If we must practice democracy, we have to move away from vote buying, using thugs and the military killing people, because the military was actually shooting people.

Alhaji Atiku of PDP has to court to challenge the result of the election. Are you doing anything similar?

First of all, this interview is part of it. The press has to be very objective because you are like the fourth arm of the government. So you have to get the true story out there. When I saw this (displaying images of dead people), I was impressed that somebody was there and captured this to show the world the truth. So, how can you say the UK and other countries endorsed it? This is situation that will never happen in the United States where armed police men and the military will be shooting people; the whole place will go up in fire on election day. It can’t happen in the United States.

If you look very well, you will discover people have moved on despite all you are alleging. How do you feel?

Nigerians are not paying attention. Day by day their democracy is going down the drain. They are not paying attention, if they were paying attention, there would be massive peaceful demonstration across the country. You will hear the herdsmen killed five or seven hundred people and nothing happens, people just get used to it. They just go about pursuing their naira and kobo things and no one is saying anything and some of them are hiding in their houses because they are afraid in their neighborhood.

Source:https://www.newtelegraphng.com/2019/03/edosomwan-why-uk-us-congratulated-buhari/