The Chairman of the National Peace Committee, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has revealed that all heads of political parties are to sign a peace accord ahead of the 2019 elections.
According to him, signing the agreement will help play a major role towards the success of the forthcoming elections.
Abubakar said this during a meeting with the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmoud Yakubu in Abuja on Wednesday.
“We have invited the chairman of INEC and he has come here with his high-power delegation. For the last one hour or so, he has briefed us on the preparation for the elections, his challenges and what he is going to do in order to make sure they are successful, free and fair.
“We have taken note of flash areas in the states where he wants the committee to intervene in order to bring peace so that elections will be conducted. On our part, we will do the best that we can in order to help sanitise the political arena.
“All of us are worried about the security situation in the Northeast and it is necessary that we try to contain it in order for INEC to go there and conduct elections.
“You should know that INEC will not send people to endanger their lives in order to conduct elections. And in actual fact, no agent or political party will endanger the lives of its people in any conflict areas and we will try to contain that violence in order to conduct elections.
“I believe that you are Nigerians, you are the people who tell us where there are crisis. You should know all these things. In particular, we have problems in Rivers state, and some other areas where problems are emerging.
“So we will try to see how we can nip the problem in the bud. And you help us also in giving us information, where you think we should intervene. It is not only the INEC that the responsibility lays on every Nigerian has a role to play.
“As far as INEC is concerned from the briefing we received, they are ready pending of course what the parties do. So now the ball is in the court of the political parties to get their acts together.
“The next stage is that we are going to meet with chairmen and secretaries of political parties tomorrow (today) in order to discuss and listen to them and to see how we can make progress.
“After the meeting with the political parties, we are going to draw a memorandum of understanding for peace and tranquility and this we hope will be signed by all the presidential candidates and the chairmen of all the registered political parties.
“Our people should realise that peace is very paramount in any society. There must be peace before we conduct elections, there must be peace before we have a country.
“So I implore you, all of you here, you know what people see, what people read, they have the tendency to believe it in total, so please make sure you educate our people, help in voter education and all the necessary things that needed to be done so that we have a peace election.”
