{"id":31964,"date":"2020-09-18T10:22:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T10:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964"},"modified":"2020-09-18T10:22:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T10:22:48","slug":"edo-poll-refrain-from-being-used-for-election-rigging-cupp-cautions-security-operatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964","title":{"rendered":"EDO POLL: Refrain from being used for election rigging, CUPP cautions security operatives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.ripplesnigeria.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Imo-Ugochinyere.jpg\" alt=\"SPEAKERSHIP: CUPP moves against Gbajabiamila, approaches Abuja Court\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has cautioned the Nigeria Police, the Army and other security agencies to \u201crefrain from using their personnel to rig\u201d tomorrow\u2019s election in Edo State in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a press release issued by the coalition\u2019s national co-spokesman, Comrade Mark Adebayo on Friday, the coalition said, \u201cA practice whereby the government at the center would unleash security agencies on a state to help its candidate to rig and win elections through voter intimidation, aiding and abetting thugs to snatch boxes or disrupt votes where their main opponent is strong or engage in indiscriminate arrests of strong non-APC politicians on the eve of  elections as witnessed in Kogi State election and other state, can no longer be tolerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAll such actions are inimical to the development of our democracy and are direct threats to the Nigerian State itself. The duties of security agencies at elections are limited to providing a safe atmosphere for the conduct of an election and the safety of the election officials and the voters. Engaging in anti-democratic activities like supporting the candidate of the Party governing at the center against the opponent is not only criminal but directly injurious to our democracy and national stability\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CUPP called on the international community to monitor the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ripplesnigeria.com\/edo-election-apc-pdp-inducing-voters-with-money-gift-items-yiaga-africa\/\">Edo governorship election<\/a>\u00a0with utmost attention and ensure that anyone seen committing electoral crimes be comprehensively sanctioned immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe commend the American government for the recent sanctions imposed on all those identified as election criminals in some states and we call on the European Union countries including the UK to follow suit by imposing comprehensive sanctions on all electoral criminals in Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It noted that the sanctions by the United States did not go far enough because there were still many election offenders walking free in the country, some of whom, it said \u201care occupying high government positions. All these ones must be captured in the sanctions to serve as deterrent for others\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group appealed to all voters in Edo State to conduct themselves peacefully while staying vigilant to protect their votes in order to ensure they were not shortchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe caution the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct the election professionally and avoid any act that is tantamount to bias against any candidate. As the regulator of our electoral processes, INEC is expected to be transparent, impartial and just to all players in our elections,\u201d CUPP said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Muhammadu Buhari had also on Thursday warned voters, political parties, election officials and security personnel, against \u201cthe do-or-die mentality to politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said he was passionately committed to free and fair elections, but that his own commitment was not enough if other actors at ground zero refused to abide by the rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has cautioned the Nigeria Police, the Army and other security agencies to \u201crefrain from using their personnel to rig\u201d tomorrow\u2019s election in Edo State in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In a press release issued by the coalition\u2019s national co-spokesman, Comrade Mark Adebayo on Friday, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>EDO POLL: Refrain from being used for election rigging, CUPP cautions security operatives &raquo; WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Politics\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=10\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"EDO POLL: Refrain from being used for election rigging, CUPP cautions security operatives\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"EDO POLL: Refrain from being used for election rigging, CUPP cautions security operatives &raquo; WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=31964#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Politics","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=10"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"EDO POLL: Refrain from being used for election rigging, CUPP cautions security operatives"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=10\" rel=\"category\">Politics<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has cautioned the Nigeria Police, the Army and other security agencies to \u201crefrain from using their personnel to rig\u201d tomorrow\u2019s election in Edo State in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In a press release issued by the coalition\u2019s national co-spokesman, Comrade Mark Adebayo on Friday, the&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31964"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}