The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) has accused the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Idowu Owohunwa, of dereliction of duty over his failure to order the arrest of Mr Musilu Akinsanya aka MC Oluomo after he was seen in a viral video threatening Igbo voters.
The NAS Capoon, Mr Abiola Owoaje in a statement entitled, “2023 Elections: Democracy of Trial” said the explanation by MC Oluomo in another viral video that he was joking was defective because it would only encourage others to issue threats to non-indigenes in future.
Owoaje therefore reiterated the call for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission to try all those involved in electoral violence.
According to him, the ethnic profiling, verbal assaults and voters suppression that marred the governorship election in Lagos and other states in Nigeria were not healthy for democracy.
“The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) is greatly saddened by the recent developments in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria culminating in the upsurge in ethnic profiling on and off social media, group blame, verbal assaults and intimidation, physical attacks, hate speech and reckless propaganda, indicative of a growing and dangerous trend of intolerance as part of Nigeria’s political culture.
“We condemn the odious resort to intimidation and physical attacks by some undesirable elements as witnessed in some parts of Lagos on March 18 with the sole objective to stymie voting in political opponents’ strongholds mostly based on tribal bias.
“These actions are unconstitutional, uncivilised and antithetical to the tenets of democracy. Freedom of association, unfettered membership of political parties, and the choice of voting for preferred candidates are guaranteed rights in the Nigerian constitution.
“Infringing upon these liberties as witnessed in Lagos and other parts of the country imperils democracy” he said.
Owoaje insisted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) disappointed Nigerians for its lack of transparency in the conduct of the Presidential election especially the inability to upload the results to the IReV portal.
He called on Nigerians not to despair in their “enthusiasm for and commitment to democracy”.
Owoaje commended Nigerians for refusing to be drawn in post-election violence which could endanger democracy pointing out that this underscores the importance they attach to the survival of democracy.
“We reiterate our plea to the political class to guard against inflammatory utterances capable of fanning the embers of hate, ethnic strife and ethnic supremacy thereby delegitimising the election results and ultimately undermining democracy.
“We welcome the intervention of those political leaders that have denounced ethnic profiling and we encourage more political leaders to courageously speak out against bigotry.
“The security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have the onerous responsibility to ensure the speedy prosecution of all electoral offenders. Even this in the light of the sad reminder that in Nigeria promoters and enablers of brigandage, vote theft and killings in previous electoral cycles have not been adequately prosecuted to serve as deterrence and discourage the impunity witnessed in some parts of Lagos and other parts of Nigeria on March 18. “These perpetrators of violence, if not already arrested, should be fished out to face the full wrath of the law.”
