The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has indicted the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari’s party, alleging that the party is complicit to all the anti-social vices inflicted on Nigeria by the Buhari administration since 2015.
PDP is claiming that death threats, violence and plot to disrupt the elections have become the official policy of the establishment under President Buhari’s watch.
National Publicity Secretary of the daring opposition party, Kola Ologbondiyan, who made this seeming dangerous charge public, pointed out that fresh facts available to them have shown that APC was allegedly responsible for the burning of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices in various parts of the country.
According to the party spokesman, ‘’PDP already has the details of how the APC mobilised misguided elements in its fold to burn INEC offices and destroy electoral materials and equipment in Plateau, Abia and Anambra states.
‘’Our party is also privy to clandestine plots by the APC to burn INEC offices in some other states, so as to paralyse the commission’s operations in such states, and pave the way for the isolation and postponement of Presidential elections in those states; after which it plans to unleash compromised security agencies to muzzle the shifted polls in favour of President Buhari.’’
Continuing, PDP said, ‘’having realised that President Buhari has no chance in a credible, free and fair general election, the APC now plots a violent staggering of the polls so as to use security forces to re-enact the same rigging formula it used in the 2018 Ekiti and Osun governorship elections. In attacking INEC offices and destroying the card readers, APC seeks to cripple the commission’s use of full benefit of technology that will guarantee a credible biometric voter accreditation.’’
The protesting party has therefore insisted that they will never accept any attempt by the APC to postpone the Presidential election in any state of the federation: ‘’The Presidential election must hold in all the states on February 16, and President Buhari will be served his defeat certificate.’’
While charging Nigerians and INEC to resist the desperation of the APC, for which it has now resorted to burning electoral offices, the party also charged INEC to note that the APC was after it facilities and as such, should put stronger measures to protect itself from the alleged assaults of the ‘’desperate’’ party.
‘’It is clear to all that violence, death threats and plot to disrupt the elections have become an official policy of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, having realized that President Buhari has no chance in the February 16 Presidential election.
‘’PDP is ready and working hard for this election. The people’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has been traversing the nooks and crannies of our country campaigning and receiving overwhelming support by Nigerians, across the board, who have already reached a consensus to elect him as the next President of our country’’, the party said.
Ologbondiyan said PDP wants Nigerians to remain alert, resist the incitements of the APC, protect one another, insisting that the Presidential election must hold on February 16 and do all, within their legitimate rights, to protect their votes to the very end.no amount of fabrications, false alarm, blackmail and resort to violence by the APC and the Buhari Presidency can sway Nigerians or help their plots to rig the 2019 Presidential election.
According to the party, ‘’the Buhari Presidency’s fresh attempt to use its chief propagandist, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to lay further false allegations on the PDP has failed, because Nigerians already know those plotting to scuttle the elections by inciting violence and issuing death threats against others.
‘’What has Lai Mohammed to say to President Buhari, who in Zamfara state on Sunday, urged his supporters to get ready to fight and unleash violence on other Nigerians? What has Lai Mohammed to say to the threat by his party’s chieftain and governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el-Rufai, who declared that members of the global democratic institution working for peaceful election in our country will return to their countries in body bags?
‘’Lai Mohammed has nothing to say to the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi, who raised a war chant and threatened Nigerians at the APC Presidential rally in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.’’
