The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Saturday, charged President Muhammadu Buhari to address the issues of violence, killings and alteration of election results “by the All Progressives Congress (APC), under his watch, and end all attempts to bring the unconstitutional third term, which he cannot get, to public discourse. “
In a statement issued in Abuja by Kola Ologbondiyan, the National Publicity Secretary, the main opposition party counseled Buhari to note that the issue of the third term was a dead end, saying: “Touting a respect for the constitution as a way of bringing the issue to public discussion cannot give it a life.”
The PDP noted that if President Buhari wanted to uphold the constitution, he should have used the APC NEC meeting to directly and strongly condemn “his party’s resort to violence, killing, forceful invasion of polling units and alteration of results to seize power in the November 16th Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship election as well as the Kogi West Senatorial election.”
The statement added: “President Buhari by now ought to have summoned his service chiefs and ordered a presidential investigation into the violence and observed infractions in the elections, including the deployment of a Police helicopter to teargas voters.
“It is important to state that such failure, however, registers grave meanings to Nigerians.
“It is also unfortunate that instead of taking concrete and decisive steps to bring the perpetrators of the heinous crimes in Kogi and Bayelsa to book and give assurances of electoral reforms, Mr President is rather seeking to make discourse of an unattainable third term.”
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The PDP further noted that from President Buhari’s speech, it was clear that he was more interested in “the survival of the murderous APC than the survival of democracy, which his party is doing all to truncate since the impunity that was introduced by the APC to manipulate greater part of the 2019 Presidential elections.”
The PDP urged Nigerians to note the President’s “well-informed fears” that the APC might not survive his tenure.
“Such is a bitter truth of the inevitable mortality of a devious platform upon which Nigerians experienced the worst form of suppression, deprivation and cruelty ever in the history of our nation. Indeed, there is no hope for APC,” the PDP declared.
It alleged that the APC was a party that has brought “so much division, bloodletting and hardship to Nigeria, so much that compatriots resorted to suicide and slavery mission abroad as options. Such a platform can only thrive for a while.”
The PDP stated: “It is therefore advisable for Mr. President to abandon the true and unambiguous picture of the fate of his dying party and concentrate on ways to address the problems brought by his administration on Nigerians.
“Instead of attempting to spur a public discourse out of unattainable third term or seeking to mend an already derelict APC, Mr. President should know that Nigerians’ expectation of him, in this second and, of course, last term, is the restoration of rule of law and a legacy of electoral reforms that will guarantee free, fair and credible election in Nigeria.
“Anything short of this is unacceptable.”
The party said in a separate statement, that after a further review of the November 16 elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, it was now clearer to Nigerians that the Buhari-led Federal Government and the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not want democracy to thrive in Nigeria.
The statement said the party and Nigerians, in general, have forcefully rejected the results bandied by INEC in the elections. It added: “We also reject the proposed Kogi West Senatorial rerun election, which has already been desecrated by the manipulations in the main election.
“As long as the figures in the main election are fundamentally flawed, the proposed rerun cannot reflect the wishes of the electorate and Nigerians are wondering if it will make any sense to participate in an electoral process that is already deficient.
“Nigerians across the board have completely lost faith in the nation’s electoral process given that the Independent National Electoral Commission under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has been annexed and cannot conduct any free, fair and credible election.
“For us in the PDP and, we believe, to the majority of Nigerians as well, Professor Yakubu is the worst electoral umpire in the political history of our nation.
“Furthermore, the police and the military high commands have been reduced to tools of election brutality to ensure that votes do not count.
“Even the Police high command has openly admitted that the police is incapable of protecting voters and votes; thus validating the reported involvement of security agents in the brutalization of voters and disruption of the electoral process.
“More distressing is the fact that Nigerians, particularly our members and supporters in Kogi and Bayelsa states, are still in trauma over the murderous November 16 elections.
“A lot of our people have been killed and our members are still grieving.
“It is public knowledge that all accredited local and international observers, including the Civil Society Situation Room, have declared that the elections did not meet the minimum standard for credible election and have unanimously called for outright cancellation.
“There is indeed nothing to indicate that more people will not be massacred in the proposed Kogi West Senatorial re-run election. It is therefore doubtful if Nigerians will be prepared to participate in that re-run given their sordid experiences in the last election.
“There is already a growing consensus across the nation that participating in elections by INEC as presently constituted under the Buhari Presidency would amount to helping to legitimize illegitimacies and outright criminalities.
“Indeed, Nigerians are not ready to join in whitewashing INEC’s battered image as such would also amount to putting lipstick on a pig.
“Moreover, there are reports in the public space that the APC-controlled Federal Government does not want Senator Dino Malaye in the Senate just because of his forthrightness in defending the interest of the people.
“Nigerians recall with shock how, at the presentation of the 2020 budget, Mr President reportedly asked Senator Melaye, ‘you, you mean you are still in this chamber?’. A question which meaning cannot be farfetched.”
The PDP said it had been made aware of how INEC and security apparatus have been instructed to use all means to stop Senator Dino from returning to the Senate.
It further said: “INEC had also blatantly refused to consider Senator Melaye’s petitions regarding the November 16 election.
“Nevertheless, the PDP remains strong and undeterred. Our party is aware of that fact that millions of Nigerians look unto our platform for strength and direction in their quest for freedom and preservation of their rights. For this, we will remain resilient until the end.
“This country belongs to all of us and nobody, no matter how highly placed, has the right to appropriate our common sovereignty for his or her anti-people purpose.
“However, as we forge on in this collective struggle, the PDP directs all flags at our national, state and local government secretariats to fly at half-mast from Monday, November 25th to Wednesday, November 27th in honour of all those killed in Bayelsa and Kogi states by the APC and their thuggish collaborators.
“Their death will never be in vain.”
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