by Ranti Joseph

The All Progressives Congress (APC) national youth wing on Thursday vowed to mobilize Nigerian youth and indeed all supporters of the APC to occupy the Aso Presidential Villa and major cities in Nigeria should the general elections be postponed again.

This was as the youth warned that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the presidency must respect the new dates fixed for the general elections.

They issued this threat at a meeting staged in Abuja by the National Youth Leader of the party, Ibrahim Jalo Dasuki, which attracted APC youth leaders from the six geo-political zones and the 36 states of the federation, including the FCT.

Pointing out that the leadership of the party accepted the previous changes as a way of upholding the rule of law, the youth warned that they would do everything necessary within the ambit of the law to ensure that the authorities do not contemplate any further postponement of the election.

While speaking at the meeting, Dasuki expressed confidence that his party will be victorious in the coming elections. “Even though we know that what they have done was based on political reasons because they truly know that if election would be held that time they will definitely lose, and we want to tell them that no matter the number of times they shift the election we will definitely win these elections. We want to tell them that we have accepted it has our leaders have accepted but election will be held on the 28 of March and that 28 remain sacrosanct because we will not tolerate any other shift in election dates. As law abiding citizens we have accepted it but if it come to a point that the government and INEC does not want to conduct election we will definitely have to take the necessary steps legally possible. Why this meeting is special is because elections are around the corner in less than four weeks, therefore we have to sit down, strategise and come up with a workable program that all of us will key in and also to set a time line on how we go about campaigning to ensure that we get victory,” he said.

Dasuki, who also reacted to speculations that the INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega, may be ousted from office before the date of the rescheduled elections however stated that the party was not interested in who stays on as the chairman of the electoral management body, adding that what was most important was who would conduct a free, fair and credible elections.

“Jega should be allowed to continue his good job because if they remove him that will take us back and everything has to start afresh from the beginning, even though they have no reason whatsoever to do that,” he added.

Also speaking, the APC Northwest zonal youth leader, Shehu Marshal, declared that their position is that the March 28 and April election dates are sacrosanct, otherwise Aso Rock and other major cities in Nigeria will be occupied.