BY BODE GBADEBO |
A political activist and former deputy national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, has called on the United States president, Joe Biden, to support Nigeria to conduct free, fair and credible elections in 2023.
This is even as he congratulated President Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, for their electoral victory, which the American people have validated through the nation’s ever vibrant and resilient democratic institutions.
He commended Biden for his phone call to a Nigerian family in which he appreciated the role played by Nigerians in his poll victory and his eventual inauguration as President.
The Bayelsa State-born activist, noted that, “the call shows that Biden has the interest of Nigerians and by extension Africans at heart.”
Frank, therefore, called on the US president to take a stronger interest in Nigeria by helping her to build stronger and better democratic institutions capable of checkmating insecurity, tyranny, oppression, intimidation, rigging, electoral fraud and violence in
Nigeria come 2023, just like American institutions have done to uphold his victory.
He also urged Nigerian security agencies, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Judiciary to learn from their US counterparts who despite the circumstances that surrounded the American elections, rather pledged their loyalty to the constitution and remained neutral.
He said that their action is very much unlike Nigeria where these organs of state easily lend themselves to manipulations to uphold, support and validate fraudulent electoral outcomes in favour of the incumbent.
Frank added that the refusal of the electoral stakeholders in American to be hound-winked by the immediate past American president, Donald Trump, has further strengthened the position of America as the defender of democracy and freedoms around the world.
He said that he is confident that Biden and Harris would further strengthen American democracy and lead the country to combat official lawlessness and ensure freedom of speech in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
The activist lauded Biden for speaking out for Nigerian youth following violent crackdown against them by security forces during the #EndSARS protests and his call during the period on the United States to stand with Nigerians who were peacefully demonstrating for police reforms and seeking an end to corruption in the country.
He called on the American president to take a stronger position against looters and those out to truncate democracy in Nigeria as well as help fight the ravaging security challenges in Nigeria and government’s intolerance and criminalisation of free speech.
