Post-election violence: A’Ibom evacuates 83 corps members from Bauchi
By Our reporter
Monday, April 25, 2011


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Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Akwa Ibom State government has evacuated more than 83 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members from Akwa Ibom State serving in different locations in Bauchi State. The corps members were airlifted home in a chartered aircraft on Saturday through the Gombe Airport at the expense of the state government.

Governor. Godswill Akpabio who disclosed at the weekend during a press conference at the Government House, said the corps members had stayed for days at an undisclosed army barracks in Bauchi following last week’s post-election violence, which broke out in some northern states during many lives were lost and property worth millions of naira destroyed.

He said the state government responded to numerous distress calls from the corps members and their families to avert being caught in a cross fire. “We acceded to numerous requests and pleas of worried and agitated parents across the state whose sons and daughters were trapped in the troubled area of Bauchi following the post-election violence by acting promptly and hiring an aircraft to save them.

“Many of the youths corpers took refuge at an army barrack in Bauchi while some hid in the bush and could not even be located but through the assistance of the Director of the State Security Service (SSS), we were able to locate them and considering the hazard of transporting them home by road, I had to charter an aircraft to bring them home safely,” Akpabio stated.

The Governor who condemned the carnage that greeted the announcement of President Jonathan as winner of the presidential election in some states in the North argued that killing fellow human beings and destroying their property in the name of politics was a sin against humanity and the perpetrators should be brought to book.
He called on Nigerian politicians to eschew violence but not allow the quest for position and power to becloud their sense of reasoning adding that the nation was greater than any individual.

“The post-presidential election violence to me is un-called-for; barbaric and highly retrogressive but I dare assert that this sponsored carnage does not in any way reflect the inner feelings of the overwhelming majority of people in the northern part of this great country as many of them also voted the president,” the governor further stated.

He commended the citizens of the state for their sense of equanimity in ensuring that president Jonathan won the presidential election and urged them to also go out in the next Tuesday April 26, governorship and House of Assembly elections by not only voting for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates but also protecting their votes.