Murder of PDP woman leader: 2023 scares us, PDP senators cry out

Senators on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have said opposition voices were no longer safe in the country.

Addressing newsmen on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader, Eyinnnaya Abaribe, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, expressed grief over the arson and killings that characterised the weekend governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, particularly the killing of the PDP woman leader, Acheju Abuh, who was burnt to death in her residence in Lokoja.

Senator Abaribe said the development in Kogi State portended gloom for the 2023 general election.

The PDP senators called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to fish out the killers of Mrs Abuh.
“We totally reject the pronouncement after the elections made by the Independent National Electoral Commission and we are very worried about the trend of what happened during those elections.

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“The outright intimidation, the killings of Nigerian citizens all in the name of some people to be able to win an election and moreso, the connivance of the security agencies with the different groupings of the APC to perpetrate a heist on Nigerians. We know that the results that were announced weren’t a true reflection of what happened in the field.

“We are much more concerned with the fact that it seems that all the gains made by the PDP in all our period of democracy starting in 1999 seems to have been eroded by what happened from the elections starting with Osun, culminating in last weekend’s elections.

“But we are further pained by the fact that the PDP woman leader, Mrs Acheju Salome Abuh, after the declaration of results and the purported victory of the governor of Kogi State, APC hoodlums still chased her to her house, poured petrol on her, hacked her and burnt her to death, in the glare of security agents. For the mere fact that she is an opposition leader and a woman at that.

“Our problem isn’t the fact that people can seek to vie for election, but our problem is that if you are in opposition and you are singled out to be murdered, then it tells us that what we are going to see coming will be very, very dangerous for Nigerians, if this isn’t curbed immediately and now.

“So, we are taking this opportunity to call on Mr President to direct the IGP and other security agencies to immediately fish out the killers of this poor lady, whose only offence is that she is the woman leader of PDP in that particular environment.

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“Because what it tells us is that the rest of us who are in opposition are no longer safe.

“What it also tells us is that anybody who seeks to win an election can go ahead, commit murder and mayhem, and so long as you belong to the APC you will be left to go. We hear that the police are launching an investigation as usual but this is something that we don’t want to be swept under the carpet because it involves life.

“Senator Dino Melaye has spoken with me and he also told me that his nephew and other people were killed in the same election in Kogi State.

“And so, we ask ourselves, when you get to power on the ashes and on the bones of all these people that you have killed, God is also there watching you because we can’t continue to condone this.

“If we leave the matter to continue this way, we don’t know what will happen in 2023. So, we call on the government of the day to match words with actions. Let us see that some people have been arrested and tried for this murder,” Abaribe said.

The lawmakers further rejected the outcome of the elections won by the APC candidates in Kogi and Bayelsa states, accusing INEC of falsifying results to favour the ruling party.

“We also want to say, for INEC, all that we have seen on all the elections going on up to this moment is a steady decline in the efficacy of our elections.

“I don’t know how INEC can accept the figures that came out of those elections. We have been in touch with our colleagues everywhere, both in Bayelsa and Kogi states and they have reassured us that whatever we saw as results were nothing but fiction, something is written somewhere.

“They brought it to announce and then declared winners. So, the caucus of the PDP in the Senate will want to tell you that we are totally resolved to confront this anomaly,” he said.