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Also yesterday, the PDP faulted claims by INEC that it didn’t meet the condition required to inspect materials used for the presidential election materials as ordered by the tribunal.
PDP national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, told LEADERSHIP that the electoral commission did everything possible to frustrate them.
While accusing the commission of working for the ruling APC, he alleged that INEC was hiding under due process to deny the PDP access to the documents.
He said: “We applied for the inspection on Monday. We cannot pay the money until they accept the application. They have not accepted, so who do we pay the money to? And if they are talking about due process, they should define what they mean by it in clear terms. We wrote them the letter on Monday. We didn’t write them the letter on Friday. So they should tell us in definite terms what they mean by due process.”
Soldiers Should Steer Clear of Reruns
To ensure hitch-free rerun in the affected states, the PDP said that soldiers should be kept out of the exercise.
The party, however, alleged that President Buhari’s posture that he would not interfere in the March 23 governorship supplementary elections amounted to a direct confession that the presidency used its overbearing influence to rig the February 23 presidential election.
The opposition party claimed that it was also a fresh subterfuge to divert public attention from the APC’s rigging plots ahead of the supplementary elections.
Ologbondiyan said that the presidency’s confession that APC members were mounting pressure on Buhari to help them to rig the supplementary elections had confirmed the Buhari presidency’s manipulative and rigging capacity, including the militarisation of the electoral process, instigating of violence and alteration of results, as were freely used by the APC in the presidential election.
In a statement he issued in Abuja, Ologbondiyan said that “Nigerians, especially those in states where the supplementary elections have been scheduled to hold,should be wary of the antics of the Buhari presidency, as it has never been committed to free, fair and credible elections.
“Nigerians can recall that ahead of the presidential and National Assembly elections, President Buhari had promised to allow for a free, fair, transparent and credible process, only for his presidency and party, the APC, to engage in downright manipulations at INEC, deployment of military and thugs to intimidate and suppress voters, as well as outright alteration of results delivered from the polling units.
“President Buhari cannot exonerate himself of the harm inflicted on our polity by the deployment of soldiers in the 2019 general elections as nobody deploys the military except the president and commander-in-chief.
“Now that President Buhari, in his official capacity, has come out to state that he will not intervene in the March 23 supplementary election; we ask, is Mr. President assuring Nigerians that any ‘soldier’ seen directly involving in the rerun election is fake and should be treated as such?
“The PDP charges the military to note the import of the statement by the presidency and steer clear of the supplementary elections.
“The PDP also cautions INEC officials to note that Nigerians are very eager about the outcome of the governorship supplementary elections, given that the PDP is already leading in these states. Nigerians are not ready to accept any results that do not reflect the reality of our victory, which is already known to all,” he said.
