The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday alerted Nigerians over alleged plots by the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) “to trigger widespread political crisis to derail” Nigeria’s democratic process and plunge the country into anarchy.
The PDP said President Buhari’s threat to the lives of Nigerians, at the opening of APC’s national caucus meeting in Abuja on Monday was a direct call for jungle justice and attempt to divert public attention from their “closed session where details of their dastardly plot to truncate our democratic process will be perfected.”
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, which was made available to TheNiche read:
“We do hope that this call by President Buhari is not a camouflage for
the fake soldiers mobilized by the APC to shoot at innocent Nigerians,
snatch ballot boxes and execute their rigging plans on the election day.
It is indeed a license to kill, which should not come from any leader of
any civilized nation.
“The underlining fact to the above is that President Buhari and APC
leaders, upon getting to their voting constituencies last Saturday,
realized that there is a nationwide rejection of Buhari’s re-election
bid, and this has thrown them into a panic mode.
“President Buhari must however bear in mind that his resort to threats
and scaremongering will not deter Nigerians from coming out en-masse to
vote him out of office on February 23.
“We are aware that President Buhari, who had earlier boasted that nobody
can ‘unseat’ him, is bent on using every dictatorial and tyrannical act
to truncate the process of a free, fair and credible election.
“Intelligence available to us shows that the Buhari Presidency has
directed the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) to immediately reshuffle the Resident Electoral Commissioners
(RECs) in order to deploy compromised officials to manipulate the
electoral process in President Buhari’s favour, as they did with the
police shortly before February 16.
“Our party is also aware of the pressure being mounted by the Buhari
Presidency on INEC to cancel elections in some states and make others
inconclusive so as to achieve President Buhari’s objectives of a
staggered election not minding the crisis such will trigger across the
federation.
“We want Nigerians and the international community to hold President
Buhari personally responsible for any electoral crisis, otherwise he
will as usual, claim that he was not aware of the plots and transfer the
blame to Adams Oshiomhole and Rotimi Amaechi.
“It is already known that President Buhari has been unrelenting in his
attempts to subdue our democracy by trying to subjugate the legislature,
emasculate the judiciary and seize control of the electoral umpire.
“Nevertheless, the PDP wants to assure President Buhari that our nation
is bigger than him and that Nigerians will never allow him and the APC
to rig this election.