The Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) on Wednesday said “no threats or smear campaign will make it buckle on
its resolve to contend with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and dismantle
its rigging machinery in all future elections.”
The oppositions party’s challenge
is coming barely 24 hours after it vowed to dismantle APC’s rigging machine.
Responding to PDP’s claim, APC
had alleged that the opposition party had laid out plans to deploy political
thugs and use cloned permanent voter’s cards to rig itself to victory in the
2019 general elections, starting from Osun governorship election.
However, PDP, in its reaction,
noted that the “APC in its statement on Wednesday, already admitted that it had
been engaged in rigging of elections, sponsoring of violence, ballot snatching
and announcing of fake results, for which it has become notorious among
Nigerians.”
A statement by PDP’s
spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, said: “It is a settled fact that though truth
can be suppressed for a season, it will always have a way of showing itself to
the light. The APC, in its own statement, has owned up to electoral
contrivances and openly admitted that it blatantly rigged last Saturday’s
National Assembly bye-election where results were altered in its favour, ballot
boxes were snatched, Nigerians were harassed, intimidated and even killed.
“The APC in its own words alluded
to ‘crude election rigging methods such as ballot snatching and announcement of
concocted election results’ which it confirmed as “recently displayed during
last weekend bye-election in Kogi state”, where it was illegally declared
winner.
“We are therefore happy that
having called them out, the APC leaders, apart from admitting their guilt of
electoral malfeasance, have demanded for a probe into our move to dismantle
their rigging machine. We welcome this demand and further request that the
probe should be done in the open, so that we can expose APC’s rigging machine
for the world to see.
“Such a probe will also provide
the PDP our long awaited opportunity to expose the compromised INEC officials,
security agents and agencies as well as fake observers used by the APC to rig
elections. The PDP will show evidence of how the APC deployed thugs to unleash
violence; used security forces to intimidate, arrest and detain PDP supporters;
the cancellation and alteration of results where PDP won, allocation of fake
results for the APC and outright declaration of concocted results to suit the
whims of APC.
“The PDP has all the facts and
will never allow them to play out again.
“Regarding Osun governorship
election, the PDP maintains that it will not allow the APC to freely use its
Ekiti and Edo rigging templates to manipulate the process to its favour. No
amount of propaganda and distortion of our statement will deter the PDP from
its stand to confront and resist the APC, head to head and ensure that only the
will of the people prevail.”
PDP also noted that it has
resolved to “set up monitoring teams in all polling centres and we will end all
attempts by the APC to buy votes or snatch ballot boxes as they did in Ekiti
and the just concluded bye-elections.
“While the PDP remains
law-abiding and will never engage in rigging, it will, with all efficiency,
dismantle the APC rigging machine and ensure a free and fair election using all
means available to members as free citizens of Nigeria. This nation belongs to
all of us and nobody, no matter how highly placed, must arrogate himself the
power to subjugate others, particularly at elections. Enough is enough.”
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