Ekiti Election Outcome: IPOB Insists On Boycott Of 2019 General Election

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has restated its controversial call for its members to boycott the 2019 general election unless the feder­al government grants its request for a referendum to determine the future of the Nigerian nation.

The group also said the out­come of last weekend’s guber­natorial election in Ekiti state had vindicated its “no-election” stance, while calling on all tribes of Nigeria to see self-determina­tion through referendum as the only way out of Nigeria’s consti­tutional quagmire.

The pro-Biafra group, in a statement issued through its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, said that the events that played out during the governorship poll, won by the candidate of the ruling All Pro­gressives Congress (APC), Kayo­de Fayemi, have proven that IPOB’s postulation is correct.
“IPOB holds that voting in Ni­geria, within the present political arrangement, is utterly useless and counter-productive. PVC has transmuted from a supposedly potent object of freedom to one of bondage,” the group said.

“IPOB will boycott all elections in Nigeria come 2019”, Powerful declared, adding that historically, tyranny had never been removed from power through elections but “through disciplined popular resistance.”
According to him, those who are still hoping to achieve any positive change through the forthcoming elections were living in denial. He, therefore, advo­cated that other ethnic groups should subscribe to self-determi­nation through referendum as the only solution to the present problem in the country.

The group alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, apart from being Fulani, was on EFCC radar when Buhari anointed him as INEC chairman. He added that history and prec­edent prove that he had never worked against Buhari and wider Fulani interest.

The group also claimed that Amina Zakari, the INEC Direc­tor of Operations, was not only Fulani, but actually President Buhari‘s niece. It also alleged that the institutions which should act electoral watch-dogs and umpires (including all the security forces) were under the control of the Fulani.
According to Emma Powerful, the number of underage voters in Kano state alone was more than all those who collected their PVC in the South East and South South.