Retired perm-secs ask candidates to accept election outcomes

The Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) has asked political parties and their candidates to accept the results of the February 25 and March 11 elections that would be declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

A statement yesterday by the council’s chairman, vice chairman and publicity secretary, Yayale Ahmed, Engr Ebele Okeke and Goke Adegoroye, respectively, also asked security agents and the INEC to provide a level-playing field for all parties in the elections.

The council called on all Nigerians to eschew violence and deploy their patriotic understanding to embrace the results declared by INEC.

“Recognising that the confidence of the populace and, indeed, of the political parties themselves in accepting the results of the election is contingent on the integrity of the electoral processes, we call on INEC to, at all levels of its operations, live up to the expectation of Nigerians and the international community as a truly independent entity, immune to the extraneous influences of agents of either the political parties or the sitting administrations, whether in physical forms or through remote cyber hacking challenges.

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“We also call on the intelligence community to be alert and proactive in its duty of identifying security flash spots to fish out observed malpractices and for the security enforcement agencies to ensure a level playing ground in taking appropriate decisive actions as required by law.

“Accordingly, we enjoin whoever emerges as winner to be humbled by the reality that he owes his victory mainly to the support outside his ethnic group while at the same time imploring those that fall short of meeting those conditions not to see their result from the narrow prism of ethnic resentment but as a clarion call to double their efforts, to foster our joint aspiration for national unity,” the statement said.