Admin l Sunday, Jan. 06, 2019
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) is furious and has called on the National Peace Committee(NPC), led by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar rtd to call President Muhammadu Buhari to order and save Nigeria from imminent collapse. According to the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO), President Muhammadu Buhari’s desperation for self-succession has become the major threat to national unity, stability and peaceful electoral process.
The party said the Buhari Presidency has been overheating the polity with its unending manipulations of INEC, muzzling of free speech which it said has escalated into clampdown on opposition and Civil Society Organizations, insisting that the the development must stop if the election must be peaceful.
“No Free and Fair Election With Amina Zakari In INEC. The PPCO insists that there is no way peace can be guaranteed without a free and fair election”, noting that 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 express invitation to crisis of epic proportion, which is capable of truncating the entire electoral process and derailing our hard-earned democracy.
“The world is aware that majority of Nigerians have rejected Mrs. Amina Zakari. Over 90 percent 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 of 2018 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”, the PPCO said.
Furthermore the PPCO 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.
The PPCO 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 PDP Presidential Campaign Council and outspoken CSOs on trumped-up criminal charges.
“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 said at a press conference addressed by its Director General, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan.
The PDP said Buhari has returned Nigeria to the nightmares of the 1984 when draconian leaders forcefully subjugated innocent Nigerians under the grips of military Decree 2 and urged the CJN to save Nigeria by insulating the judiciary from this ignoble scheme.
“The PPCO wants 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.
“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.
“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 party said.
