Governorship Polls: Kogi East Neighbourhood Watch calls for collaboration

Ahead of Kogi State Governorship election scheduled for November 11, 2023. Kogi East Neighbourhood Watch on Saturday called on the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), Kogi State Command to collaborate for a violence free exercise.

In a statement by the Community Policing outfit’s Director of Public Communications, Wing Commander Iye Ayefu (rtd), which was made available to CAPITAL POST in Lokoja, urged the youths and the Local Government Council Chairmen to eschew violence ahead of the election.

He called on the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN) to collaborate with the Neighbourhood Watch, so as to ensure peace, before, during and after the governorship election.

The statement condemned inter and intra-party clashes by suspected thugs, leading to deaths in the Eastern Senatorial District, saying that election has not become warfare.

Commander Iye Ayefu (rtd) counselled contestants to advise their supporters and sympathizers to maintain peace and exercise restraint in their utterances and actions , and also focus on their manifestoes and those issues that would convince electorate in voting for them. He also called on those Local Government Council Chairmen who are shooting in their houses in the evenings to desist.

According to him, developments with regards to violence in past weeks in the Eastern part of the State was unacceptable, noting that, he has reasons to suspect proliferation of arms and ammunition including dangerous weapons in the possession of some party supporters.

Part of the statement read: “We call on the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), Kogi State Command for a collaboration as the State faces a critical moment in its electioneering history.

“For past weeks, we have witnessed killings by suspected thugs of political parties with the attendant accusations and counter-accusations. This is unacceptable and this must stop hence forth.

“The Neighbourhood Watch is calling for collaboration and synergy for a hitch-free and a violence free Governorship election.”

CAPITAL POST recalled that the heightened thuggery attacks in Kogi East has led to deaths of young men, particularly in Dekina, Ofu, Ankpa, Idah and other places.