Segun Akanni, Toronto, Canada 
….Rejects proposed Kogi West Senatorial rerun
The Peoples Democratic Party has directed that all its flags at its national, state and local government secretariats should fly at half-mast till Wednesday.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Saturday said the directive was in honour of those who were killed during the November 16 governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States.
The PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, had during a recent media briefing said that from the reports reaching PDP, no fewer than 30 Nigerians were killed including the gruesome incineration of one PDP’s woman leaders in Kogi State, Mrs. Acheju Abuh, who was burnt to death in her home.
Ologbondiyan, said the death of the victims will not be in vain.
He said, “However, as we forge on in this collective struggle, the PDP directs all flags at our national, state and local government secretariats to fly at half-mast from Monday, November 25th to Wednesday, November 27th in honour of all those killed in Bayelsa and Kogi States. Their death will never be in vain.”
He stated that after a further review of the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States, the PDP noted that it is now clearer to Nigerians that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government and the All Progressives Congress do not want democracy to thrive in the country.
According to him, the PDP and Nigerians, in general, have forcefully rejected the results declared by INEC in the elections.
He also said the party has rejected the proposed Kogi West Senatorial rerun election, which, he said, had already been desecrated by the alleged manipulations in the main election.
Ologbondiyan said, “As long as the figures in the main election are fundamentally flawed, the proposed rerun cannot reflect the wishes of the electorate and Nigerians are wondering if it will make any sense to participate in an electoral process that is already deficient.
“Nigerians across the board have completely lost faith in the nation’s electoral process given that Independent National Electoral Commission under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has been annexed and cannot conduct any free, fair and credible election.”
He also alleged that the police and the military high commands had been reduced to tools of election brutality to ensure that votes did not count.
According to him, even the Police high command had openly admitted that the police were incapable of protecting voters and votes; thus validating the reported involvement of security agents in the brutalisation of voters and disruption of the electoral process.
