PDP behind circulation of anti-poll leaflets - APC

The All Progressives Congress has accused those who are “mortally afraid” of the 2015 general elections of sponsoring the circulation of leaflets, urging the people of Gombe State to stay away from the polling booths on election days or risk being in trouble.

In a statement in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it could not put anything beyond the Peoples Democratic Party and the Goodluck Jonathan Administration, because of their desperation to ensure that the general elections did not hold, at all costs.


It said even the attack on Gombe on Saturday was suspect, wondering how Boko Haram insurgents would drive on the highway from Maiduguri to Gombe in a convoy of many vehicles without being spotted or stopped at the myriad of military checkpoints dotting the areas.

APC said it was curious that the Boko Haram terrorists, who had never mentioned the elections in their regular videos on YouTube, had suddenly started campaigning against the conduct of elections.

The party also noted that the local government elections in Yobe, one of the hotbeds of the Boko Haram insurgency, went without any incident in 2013, indicating there had not been a systematic campaign by the insurgents to attack voters.

”Part of the strategies of the PDP and the Jonathan Administration is to depopulate perceived opposition strongholds through all sorts of dangerous measures, and this scaremongering, supposedly by Boko Haram, fits into that strategy.

“They are also the unseen hands behind the advertisement by faceless groups, urging Muslims to vote for Muslim candidates. It is in line with their exploitation of religious and ethnic fault lines to divide Nigerians,” the party said.

APC said the alarm raised by Mike Omeri, the Coordinator of the National Information Centre, that some female suicide bombers might strike at polling units during the elections, also fits into the PDP/Jonathan Administration’s opposition stronghold depopulation strategy.

The party added, ”It is now very clear to Nigerians that the PDP-led federal government does not want the forthcoming elections to hold, because it is guaranteed a shellacking. First the government sponsored a campaign to postpone the elections because of low PVC distribution.

“When they realised the number of PVCs collected was growing and that their argument might no longer be tenable, they suddenly used security as an alibi, abandoning their earlier push for the election shift on the basis of low PVC distribution.

”After they succeeded in forcing the postponement, they launched another campaign for the PVCs and the Card Readers to be jettisoned in favour of TVCs, because that will allow them to rig if indeed the elections proceed in spite of them.

“Those campaigning against the use of PVCs and Card Readers have forgotten that Ghana successfully used the same technology in its last elections, and that it is not rocket science.”