2019 elections under threat —PDP

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned that Nigeria’s democracy under grave threat, adding that the 2019 election is being threatened by the Federal Government.

Chairman of the national caretaker committee of the party, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, while addressing a world press conference on the Edo State gubernatorial election and Rivers State rerun, in Abuja, on Tuesday, also alleged that Nigerian security agencies had now become political thugs used by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to rig elections and unleash terror on voters.

“We address you today with a heavy heart. We address you today because our hard-won democracy is under grave threat.

“This threat is conceived, planned and executed by some elements within the current APC-led governments at both national and state levels,” he said.

While sympathising with victims of the violence, Makarfi alleged that the military, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Department of State Security (DSS) in the most heinous crime, harassed, intimidated and, where there is resistance, killed voters, all in a bid to subvert the will of the people of Rivers State in the just concluded legislative elections.

Makarfi blamed the situation on the alleged desperation of Minister of Transport and former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, to return Magnus Abe of the APC to the Senate.

Makarfi observed that after witnessing free and fair elections in 2011 and an improved version in 2015, of which the APC was the major beneficiary, the gains recorded in the electoral process in the country under the previous dispensations were now being reversed.

While calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to take action against electoral officials and security agents who were compromised during the Rivers elections, the former Kaduna State governor also called on the president to call Amaechi and some other top functionaries of his government to order.

“No group of persons must be seen to be above the laws of this country,” he said.