2027: Civil Group Warns Against Plot To Disrupt Polls In Ebonyi

Ahead of the 2027 governorship election in Ebonyi State, a civil group, Ebonyi Community (EBOCOM) Abuja Chapter, has warned agents of destabilisation not to disrupt the peace of the state.

The group rejected what it described as a sponsored campaign of blackmail aimed at hijacking the peace and progress of the state ahead of the 2027 election.

The group said the recent orchestrated protests and coordinated attacks on the administration of Governor Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi State and the Commissioner of Police, Hope Urunwa Okafor, are the work of sponsored criminal elements, external agitators and local collaborators who cannot tolerate a state steadily advancing while others remain trapped in violence and underdevelopment.

Chief Idenyi Chinedu Edward and Comrade Elem Okoh, President-General and Secretary of the group, said: “We stand with His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, the Executive Governor of Ebonyi State.

We also stand with the Commissioner of Police, CP Hope Urunwa Okafor, and with every officer and man of the Nigeria Police Force who has worked tirelessly under the governor’s peace agenda to keep our state from sliding into the chaos that has engulfed other parts of this country.

“What we have witnessed in recent days — the orchestrated protests, the coordinated blackmail, the deliberate attempt to paint a performing administration as a threat to democracy — is nothing less than a calculated, sponsored effort to hijack the peace and progress of Ebonyi State.”

The group revealed that it has formally petitioned the Inspector-General of Police over the activities of those it described as external collaborators and their local agents, warning that the state’s security architecture has taken note of such collaborations and that those whose actions threaten peace will face the law.

It argued that the protests stem from the success of the governor’s peace agenda and the professional, intelligence-driven and community-rooted policing under CP Okafor, which has brought measurable improvements in previously volatile areas.

The community group pointed to security gains in places such as Amankwo, Effiom (Effium axis) and other flashpoints, attributing them to the governor’s insistence on dialogue, demarcation where necessary, empowerment of traditional institutions and zero tolerance for violence.

It contrasted Ebonyi’s relative stability with the tragic situations in parts of Benue, Kogi, Borno and elsewhere, insisting that the refusal to follow a path of endless conflict is what angers the “merchants of crisis.”

EBOCOM also defended the governor’s recent remarks while inaugurating newly elected local government chairmen, describing them as firm motivational charges rather than threats to democracy, and accusing critics of twisting a coach’s pre-match talk into bad-faith allegations.

“They protest because the governor’s peace agenda is working. They protest because the Commissioner of Police and the command under her have, through professional, intelligence-driven and community-rooted policing, restored relative calm in areas that once lived under the shadow of communal bloodletting,” the statement said.

“Let us be clear and emphatic: those remarks were not threats. They were the words of a coach charging his team. Every serious leader who wants results speaks with firmness.

Governor Nwifuru looked the chairmen in the eye and told them the truth — that their primary duty is to deliver good governance at the grassroots and to ensure that the dividends of democracy are felt in every ward.”