The Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) says President Muhamamdu Buhari’s statement that he will not interfere
with the supplementary elections is a direct confession that he used his
influence to rig the February 23 presidential election.
Garba Shehu, spokesman of Buhari,
had said some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) expected the
president to direct the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to
change results of the forthcoming supplementary elections in favour of the
ruling party but the president would not do so.
INEC had declared the March 9
elections inconclusive in some states and fixed March 23 for supplementary
polls.
Shehu said as a leader who had
sworn to uphold the constitution, Buhari would not interfere with the exercise.
But in a statement by Kola
Ologbondiyan, PDP spokesman, the party described what the president said as a
“subterfuge to divert public attention from APC’s rigging plots” ahead of the
rerun.
It called on Nigerians,
especially those in states where the supplementary elections have been
scheduled to hold, to be wary of the “antics of the Buhari Presidency as it has
never been committed to a free, fair and credible elections”.
“The Presidency’s confession that
APC members are mounting pressure on President Buhari to help them to rig the
supplementary elections further confirms the Buhari Presidency’s manipulative
and rigging capacity, including militarisation of the electoral process,
instigating of violence and alteration of results, as were freely used by the
APC in the Presidential election,” the PDP said.
“Nigerians can recall that ahead
of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, President Buhari had
promised to allow for a free, fair, transparent and credible process, only for
his Presidency and party, the APC, to engage in downright manipulations at
INEC, deployment of military and thugs to intimidate and suppress voters, as
well as outright alteration of results delivered from the polling units.
“President Buhari cannot
exonerate himself of the harm inflicted on our polity by the deployment of
soldiers in the 2019 general election, as nobody deploys the military except
the president and commander-in-chief.
“Now that President Buhari, in
his official capacity, has come out to state that he will not intervene in the
March 23 Supplementary election. We ask, is Mr President assuring Nigerians
that any ‘soldier’ seen directly involved in the rerun election is fake and
should be treated as such?”
The PDP charged the military to
note the import of the statements by the presidency and “steer clear of the
supplementary elections”
The party also cautioned INEC
officials to note that Nigerians were very eager about the outcome of the
supplementary elections, given that “the PDP is already leading in these
states”.
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com