The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) description of the last two general elections in the country as a height of electoral impunity is way off the mark.
According to the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), for PDP to ascribe such unflattering comments on the elections is sheer hypocrisy
BMO said in a statement signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke that PDP is yet to come to terms with its rejection by the Nigerian people in two consecutive elections.
“It is amusing that a party which, for 16 years, rode roughshod over the country’s electoral process to the extent that results were announced even while collation of results was still on in many cases, is now laying false claim to sainthood.
‘Until 2015, the average turnout at PDP-era elections was closer to 40million, compared to that of 2019 which was more realistic. Nigerians will not forget in a hurry that virtually all the processes were fraught with fraud in the PDP years of the locust.
“We know for a fact that there is still no official record of the 2007 Presidential election results, almost thirteen years after the process that was even discredited by the biggest beneficiary of that flawed election, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
“And even that of 2015, that the PDP National Chairman Uche Secondus is keen on showcasing as his party’s achievement, is more of a citizen action against a 16-year misrule that Nigerians were tired of and had regularly shown their dissent with series of nationwide protests and workers’ strike.
“It is on record that the former ruling party condemned the electoral process and we are sure no one will forget in a hurry the dramatic scene put up by a PDP chieftain Godsday Orubebe in a bid to disrupt the collation of result that same year”, the statement added
The group also accused PDP of introducing the military into elections by deploying troops in States it was desperate to win at all cost.
“If Secondus has forgotten, he needs to be reminded that Nigerians have not forgotten how, for instance, soldiers were deployed arbitrarily for election duties in Ekiti and Osun States as part of a grand plan to make an incursion into the South West in the Goodluck Jonathan years.
“It was so bad that a minister of defence was involved and even promised accelerated promotions to a commanding officer and his men if they were able to pull off the electoral heist. The video of the whistle-blowing Captain Sagir Koli is still in the public domain in case the PDP chairman has forgotten.
“The Buhari administration deployed troops for election duties, but it was clearly based on the clear and present danger from cult groups on one hand in some States, and insurgents who vowed to disrupt the voting processes in some parts of North-Eastern Nigeria.
“So Nigerians should know that we are dealing with a party that has no qualms about lying and heating up the polity.
“Here is a party that looted the country dry for sixteen years and also looted its own coffers of billions of naira that was raised for a new national secretariat that is perpetually under construction.”
BMO noted that it was high time PDP came to terms with the reality that President Muhammadu Buhari defeated his closest rival in the 2019 election with a margin that is larger than the combined population of Sao Time, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Mauritius.
