PDP and fears of opposition

After the initial postponement, the D-Day is almost here again. And the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is sounding triumphantly upbeat. The party is convinced that if the presidential election is free and fair, it is certain to win it. But the keyword for the former ruling party is free and fair. Throughout the campaign period, one refrain that rang through the main opposition party’s sloganeering is that the All Progressive Congress (APC) is in cahoots with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to rig the exercise in favour of the ruling party. Central to this scheme, PDP believes, is the deliberate retention of Mrs Amina Zakari, a relation of President Muhammadu Buhari, as the head of the INEC collation centre for the election.

PDP has consistently had issues with Amina’s role at INEC believing, that she has been at the heart of election manipulation against the party in the exercises conducted under the APC administration in the past. “Already, the public space is filled with the insistence that, given the confession by President Muhammadu Buhari that Mrs Amina Zakari is his relation by marriage, she must, as a matter of necessity, be exempted from any electoral function in order to avert a conflict of interest bordering on partisanship. We call on the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and all democratic institutions across the world to rise and appeal to the INEC chairman to, in the interest of peace, exempt Amina Zakari from the exercise, as any election conducted with her participation in INEC cannot be anything credible,” PDP maintained.

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The stiff pressure from the opposition ostensibly had led to her deployment from the all-important Head of Operations she held to a lesser portfolio of health and welfare at the commission. Why she was still brought to the INEC collation centre, despite her perceived baggage remains a mystery. To PDP, however, it was clearly a design to manipulate the election result in favour of her relation, President Buhari.

Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, had, at various times, sought to reassure the opposition that Amina’s presence would not have an undue impact on the collation of the result of the presidential election, as he, as the boss of the electoral body, is directly in charge of the presidential election collation. But this assurance by Yakubu has hardly assuaged the PDP suspicion. Hence, at every rally or meeting, PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, would hammer home the point that the opposition does not trust the national electoral body to conduct a free, fair and credible election. Therefore, on several occasions, he had also invited the international community to take note that the ruling party was allegedly perfecting a plan to rig the election.

The PDP cries have apparently been heeded by the international community which has responded individually and collectively with statements of warning on the need to render the election free, fair and credible. They have appeared to direct their warnings to the government to refrain from the use of security forces to intimidate voters so that the electorate can vote in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. On this, PDP has been particularly vocal because of what it says was its experience in recent elections in Ekiti and Osun states where it argued that the security agencies were blatantly used to suppress the exercise of voters’ franchise.

With the eye of the international community on the electoral process, PDP appears to feel even more emboldened to demand a clean process and has ventured to challenge APC to rig the election because, in its estimation, the process can no longer be manipulated because Nigerians would not allow that.

“Nigeria is bigger than them and there is no way Nigerians will allow them to rig the 2019 general elections or achieve their self-succession plan,” the PDP’s spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, said at a press conference recently. He further explained: “Our history as a nation has amply shown that no individual leader, no matter the authority wielded, has ever succeeded, at any point in time, in subduing the spirit of our nation or place our people under a siege and not even this strange recourse to importation of mercenaries into our country can change that reality.”

PDP fears that the APC-led government is intent on jeopardising its chances of returning to power as it believes that Nigerians have made up their minds to oust the current government at the centre. According to the PDP, the ruling party is doing its utmost to short circuit the people’s desire. Ologbodiyan, who also doubled as the Director, Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, said, “Nigerians have decided to vote out President Buhari and no amount of intimidation, clampdown and harassment can change that resolve.

“It has become manifest that compatriots, irrespective of creed, ethnicity, and political leanings, are today extremely eager to vote out the Buhari presidency which, out of sheer incompetence, has wrecked our once robust economy and brought so much poverty, hunger, pain, and anguish to Nigerians, once reputed as the happiest people in the world. The Buhari presidency and APC have come to the stark reality that the influences on which they rode to power in 2015 no longer avail. They have come to the moment of truth that Nigerians have seen through their lies, propaganda, false promises, beguilement, and holier-than-thou posturing and are now poised to take back their country at the polls.

“Today, APC and the Buhari presidency have become uncontrollably feverish over the overwhelming acceptance gained by Atiku Abubakar in all the geo-political zones, particularly in the North-West states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna and Jigawa, hitherto considered as President Buhari’s political stronghold. Having lost genuine followership in the North-West, the North-Central, the North-East and a greater part of the South-West, all of which gave them a ride to victory in 2015, and having no prospects in the South-East and South-South, APC and the Buhari presidency are now seeking ways to derail our electoral process.”

APC though has continued to push back the PDP’s allegations, maintaining that Nigerians are in no mood just yet to return the former ruling party to office, seeing the exceptional performance of the present administration and after what it argues is the PDP’s 16 years of waste and corruption.

The leadership of the ruling party has maintained that Nigerians are not ready to go back to the locust years when it claimed PDP, then in power, ran aground the nation’s wealth and resources. It has therefore consistently reeled out its achievements, especially in the rail sector and infrastructure financing as evidence of what would endear it to Nigerians the more.

Are the anxieties of the opposition founded or mere political theatrics? That is a question you cannot answer without recourse to recent scenarios around the off-season elections. Vigilance on the part of all stakeholders would be the word. This became more pertinent in the face of the yet unsettled dust raised by the postponement of the presidential election, last week, by INEC.

Despite the anxieties, however, PDP appears confident that Nigeria has reached a point of no return and that the outcome of the election, this Saturday, all things being equal, would manifest a PDP victory, irrespective of any shenanigans.