APC fails to address Tinubu’s rigging plot, asks security agencies to quiz PDP members
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Allegation of how Bola Tinubu is unleashing violence by proxy on the facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in his alleged plot to rig the 2023 vote is not being addressed by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Instead, APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) spokesman Festus Keyamo has asked law enforcement agencies to invite Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders for questioning for exposing the plot.
PDP spokesperson Debo Ologunagba last Wednesday in Abuja urged the security agencies to probe and sanction Tinubu over the alleged plot to derail the 2023 election.
Ologunagba, who was also speaking for PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, also asked President Muhammadu Buhari to call Tinubu and other APC members to order to ensure a peaceful, free, fair, transparent and credible electoral process.
He cited how an online video shows Tinubu allegedly held a closed-door meeting in London earlier this month where he told APC members that ‘“political power is not going to be served in a restaurant. It is not served a la carte.
‘“It is what we are doing; It is being determined; you do it at all costs; fight for it, grab it, snatch it and run with it.”’
“In response to this directive,” Ologunagba said, “APC leaders and members have now activated plots to derail the electoral process through orchestrated violent attacks in various states of the country aimed to trigger a national security emergency, instil fear and make it appear not conducive to conduct elections in the country.
“Part of the plot is the current attacks on the facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] in various parts of the country as witnessed in Ogun, Osun and Imo States where sections critical to the conduct of elections, particularly those connected to the collection of Permanent Voters Cards PVCs, were targeted and destroyed.”
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PDP aware of APC plans for orchestrated attacks
“Our party has been made aware of plans by the APC to orchestrate attacks in other states, particularly Kogi and Delta, some states of the South East as well as parts of the North with the view to subverting the electoral process in as many states as possible,” Ologunagba said, per reporting by The PUNCH.
“Intelligence available to our party indicates that the attack on INEC facilities is to prevent newly-registered voters from collecting their PVCs; destroy the PVCs so that they will not be available for collection in INEC offices, and thirdly, destroy INEC equipment and cripple its capacity to conduct elections.
“In addition, the APC has introduced a very disturbing dimension of purchasing PVCs from unsuspecting Nigerians through monetary inducement masquerading as empowerment programmes.
“In any case, our party is not surprised at the resort to violence by … Tinubu and the APC; a clear acceptance of electoral defeat which accounts for [Tinubu’s] decision to boycott the signing of the National Peace Accord by presidential candidates in the 2023 elections.
“Of course, the London meeting where … Tinubu directed his party members to unleash violence on Nigerians was a closed-door event which inadvertently leaked to the public.
“The APC aimed to hit our nation with violence and mislead security agencies to direct their investigation on criminal elements and social restiveness, instead of the real culprit, the APC.”
PDP beats about the bush in response
But Keyamo countered that the manner in which Ologunagba and the PDP made the allegation shows they know more than they are trying to deceive Nigerians.
He said the PDP must provide information about the place and time such a meeting took place and those in attendance, identities of those who committed these acts of arson on the facilities of INEC and those who sponsored them.
“This press statement [by the PDP], coming just barely 48 hours after one of its former officials was convicted by a court of law over illegal acts committed during an election over which the PDP government presided, is just a pointer to the lowest level of moral debauchery to which the PDP has sunk,” Keyamo argued.
“It operates without an iota of shame or respect for the Nigerian people. Instead of continuous apologies for those grievous acts of election rigging, money laundering and other electoral malpractices, it continues to pontificate.
“Based on its latest statement about having ‘credible information’ about certain individuals plotting to derail the 2023 elections, including acts of arson already perpetrated on the facilities of INEC, we, therefore, call on the law-enforcement agencies to, as a matter of urgency, invite the PDP leaders for immediate questioning.”