APC wants to cripple opposition ― PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed concern that the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is intent on crippling opposition in the country.

But the main opposition party has said the “coup” against Nigeria’s democracy will not stand “in spite of its orchestration of violence, killings and forceful seizure of electoral processes.”

In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, the PDP insisted that no amount of blackmail, innuendos, threats and direct attacks by the APC will make it drop its people-based demands for electoral reforms that will return our country to the democratic practice that engenders respect to the rights of our citizens for a free, fair, clean, clear and credible elections.

The party alleged that the APC’s blackmail against the PDP is part of its diversionary tactics to enable it sustain its “coup” against democracy through the use of state apparatus of power and paid hoodlums to unleash brute force, arbitrary arrests, bloodletting and killings to terrorize and suppress Nigerians, snatch their franchise and continue to seize power with impunity.

The PDP added: “Nigerians can recall the malicious trajectory in how the APC used firearm to seize power in Ekiti State in 2018; unleashed cudgels in the March 2019 governorship election in Kano, and the latest being the unbridling of indescribable bloodletting, forceful invasion of polling units, killing of voters and the horrendous deployment of police helicopter in the November 2019 governorship and senatorial elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states.

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“This reign of violence has been followed with the annexation of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), alteration of election results, violation of constitutional provisions and threats to institutions of democracy including political parties, the judiciary and civil society groups.

“Such impunity, violations and political brigandage are not part of the tenets of democracy and Nigerians, who have become disillusioned, have continued to express their disenchantment for such bloodstained political process.

“Moreover, the silence of the police hierarchy to the use of police helicopter to attack voters in Kogi state as well as the failure to parade those said to have been arrested for the burning of a PDP Woman Leader, Mrs Salome Abuh, only point to nothing but suspicions of conspiracy at very high places.

“APC’s ultimate design is to use violence, intimidation, attacks, blackmail and threats against the PDP to frighten Nigerians and scare them from participating in electoral processes, then upset our democratic order and perpetuate a one-party despotic regime in our nation. This is the reason the APC is averse to our pro-people call for electoral reforms in our country.

“However, the APC must know that such plots against the people cannot stand, as Nigerians have seen the directions and will never accept a one-party system with its attendant despotic proclivities.

“The APC should, therefore, perish the dream of imposing a one-party state as well as its distortions that the PDP will not participate in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.

“Such ignoble script cannot succeed, as the PDP remains the cornerstone of Nigerians’ participation in the democratic order; hence our unshaken resolve to stand with the people on the insistence for electoral reforms in our country.”