The Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) has called on Nigerians to eschew violence and deploy their patriotic understanding to embrace the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the true spirit of fair game.
CORFEPS is made up of top civil servants who retired after attaining the grade of Permanent Secretary and Head of Civil Service of the federation.
The retired top civil servants made the call in a communique issued on Wednesday and signed by the National Chairman, Yahaya Ahmed, Ist Vvice Chairman, Engr. Ebola Okeke and Publicity Secretary, Goke Adegoroye.
They also called 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.
” To ensure effective security for the elections, we call on the Federal Government to, through its appropriate agencies, attend to the needs of the Intelligence Community, to avoid any inducement temptations that may arise from inadequate provision for their out-of-station allowances and other sundry hardware requirements.
” We appeal to the conscience of all Public/Civil Servants to remember their traditional non-partisan role and display exemplary patriotism in managing the affairs of the nation at this critical time when their Ministers and other political office holders are out in the political field.
” Judging from the provisions of section 134 of the Constitution, which is binding on INEC for the declaration of a winner in a presidential election, the stark realities of our national situation in this Constitutional Democracy is that all the major ethnic groups need each other to produce the President of the Federation, as no ethnic group can make it alone.
” 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; and finally”, said the retired civil servants.
The association said that it acknowledged the calculated good intentions of the Naira Swap policy, commending the government for it.
It, however, called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to reappraise its channels of currency distribution and to direct the deposit banks to activate all their physical cash and electronic fund disbursement strategies immediately, to ease the strain of access to the new currencies by the populace throughout the election period.
” 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”, said CORFEPS.
