THE Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council (PDPPCO) has urged the General Abdulsalami Abubakar-led National Peace Council to prevail on President Muhammadu Buhari on his alleged insistence to have Mrs Amina Zakari, regarded as a relation of the President, head in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) result collation centre.
The party told a press conference in Abuja on Sunday that Buhari’s alleged self-succession plan has become a major threat to the successful conduct of this year’s general election.
Addressing journalists, the spokesman of the council, Kola Ologbodiyan, said it wanted the National Peace Committee and the entire world to know that as long as Amina Zakari is in INEC, a peaceful election is not guaranteed because she has the mandate to abuse the process and this will not be accepted by Nigerians.
He added: “The PDP Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) alerts the National Peace Committee, the United Nations and all world leaders to save our nation from imminent collapse by immediately calling President Muhammadu Buhari to order if we must have peaceful, free, fair and credible general elections in February.
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“We want the whole world to know that Nigeria is in a perilous time. President Muhammadu Buhari’s desperation for self-succession has become the major threat to our national unity, stability and the peaceful electoral process.
“Having realized that Nigerians are rallying behind our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as their next President, the Buhari Presidency is now seeking ways to enmesh the electoral process in crisis.
“The Buhari Presidency has been overheating the polity with its unending manipulations of INEC, muzzling of free speech and escalated clampdown on opposition and Civil Society Organizations and we insist that such must stop if we must have a peaceful election.
“No Free and Fair Election With Amina Zakari In INEC.”
While insisting that there is no way peace can be guaranteed without a free and fair election, the PDPPCO spokesman noted: “Already, Nigerians across the board are livid with anger over the foisting of Mrs Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s relation, to head the collation of Presidential election results.
“President Buhari’s insistence on having his relation in charge of collation of Presidential election results is completely provocative, a direct affront to the sensibilities of Nigerians and an express invitation to the crisis of epic proportion, which is capable of truncating the entire electoral process and derailing our hard-earned democracy.
“The world is aware that the majority of Nigerians have rejected Mrs Amina Zakari. Over 90 per cent of the political parties in the election, as well as major political and socio-cultural groups across the country, have also called for her resignation from INEC, yet President Buhari is insisting on her stay in the commission.
“Our party is aware of plots by the Buhari Presidency to use Amina Zakari, who has been mentioned as part of those involved in the rigging oof2018 governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states, to plunge the 2019 general elections into controversies, truncate the flow of results and even render elections in some critical states inconclusive, to pave way for allocation of fictitious votes to President Buhari and the APC.
“We want the National Peace Committee and the entire world to know that as long as Amina Zakari is in INEC, a peaceful election is not guaranteed because she has the mandate to abuse the process and this will not be accepted by Nigerians
The PPCO Director of Media and Publicity, therefore, called on the National Peace Committee to immediately speak out on the impropriety of having Amina Zakari in INEC as well as insist on her removal so that we can have a credible and peaceful Presidential election.
Furthermore, the PDPCO noted that peaceful election cannot be guaranteed as long as the Buhari Presidency continues to “besiege, harass, intimidate, unleash violence and provocative acts of totalitarianism against opposition figures and persons perceived to be against President Buhari’s self-succession bid.”
Ologbodiyan also alerted the entire world and particularly the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) of “the ongoing use of the Police to clamp down on opposition figures, particularly members of the PDPCO PDP and outspoken CSOs on trumped-up criminal charges.”
Ologbodiyan further stated: “Part of the plot is to charge such individuals before certain compromised judicial officers, in various states, who have been briefed to detain, silence and put such opposition figures and CSO members out of circulation until after elections are concluded.
“Particular cases at hand are those of our Presidential Campaign Director on Civil Societies, Senator Dino Melaye, who is being hounded for his outspokenness against the misrule of the Buhari Presidency, as well as Civil Rights activist, Deji Adeyanju, who is widely believed to have been held down in prison because of his scathing criticism against the violations of the rights of Nigerians by the Buhari Presidency.”
The PPCO recalls that Senator Melaye had earlier alerted of plots by the Police to arrest and poison him, saying: “His present ordeal as well as those of the civil rights activist, Deji Adeyanju, in the hands of the Buhari-led authorities, is incendiary in an election year and we insist that no harm must come to them or any member of the opposition or CSOs, before, during and after the elections.
“The PDPCO is aware that the aim is to use the state apparatus of power to attempt to instil fear in Nigerians, stifle free speech, cow opposition and CSOs to silence so as to pave for President Buhari’s self-succession.
“This is a clear attempt to return our nation to the nightmares of 1984 when draconian leaders forcefully subjugated innocent Nigerians under the grips of military Decree 2 and we urge the CJN to save our nation by insulating the judiciary from this ignoble scheme.”
However, the PDPCO wanted the Buhari Presidency to note that “it is preposterous for anybody, no matter how highly placed, to think that our great party, the PDP and our Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who enjoys the support of overwhelming majority of Nigerians, can be subdued out of the political space in our country.”
He recalled: “Our heroes past fought against colonialism and won. Our modern heroes fought the military and gained today’s democracy for our nation so that every Nigerian can enjoy freedoms and rights as guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Nigerians are therefore not ready to surrender these freedoms and rights to neo-totalitarianism or allow anybody to suppress them in their own land.
“We, therefore, counsel President Buhari to tame his desperation for power. Our nation has had many Presidents before President Buhari and there will be many more after him.”
According to him, President Buhari will not be the first President to be defeated in an election, “as such he should not set our nation on fire just because he is feeling the air of rejection due to his incompetence and the gale of corruption in his administration.”
The campaign spokesman assured that the main opposition party is courageously going into the general elections with “the support of overwhelming majority of Nigerians and they are not ready to accept any result that does not reflect their already expressed wishes and aspirations.”
Recalled that the appointment of Amina Zakari as the chairman of the INEC presidential election collation centre committee has generated controversy as the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Health and Welfare had been seen as a close relation of President Buhari.
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