The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has ruled out the possibility of reversing its decision to challenge in court the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari last Saturday. Briefing journalists yesterday in Abuja, the party’s National Chairman, Uche Secondus, dismissed reports that the party had given some conditions for reversing the decision to the National Peace Committee. Secondus said its leadership told the committee that there could be no peace without justice, adding that only the court would address the electoral injustice at last Saturday’s elections.
He also declared that there was no arrangement for any peace meetings between PDP and the APC, adding: “We will go to court. Nobody will stop us from going to court to bring all the facts before the international observers and our people have to see. We will unearth them at the courts and I believe that justice will be done at the courts, because if we continue to suppress injustice and go sentimental, the country will continue to sit on gun powder that will explode one day,” he stressed.
“That is why we decided as good citizens and law-abiding people who believe in the rule of law that we will go.” Providing details on the party’s meeting with the committee, Secondus said: “When they came, they met with us and they requested us to please state our grievances. Initially, we were not to talk with them because a decision had been taken to go to court, but because of the personalities involved, we said okay, let’s just talk. It was no condition. There was no request of any condition. We made it clear that unless the injustices are addressed, there is no room for peace. It is only when you address the injustice that you can now sit down for peace.
“So, whatever interpretation that was done by anybody, let it be clear to anybody that we did not file condition, they did not request for it, it was like, look what really happened in the election and we told them how the military took over the election and conducted the election in favor of APC and INEC collusion.”
The PDP chairman added: “The clear effect of militarizing the election particularly in the South-South and Southeast, in addition to the killing of innocent electorate, was the obvious suppression of voters who were either scared out or chased away. “Even by INEC’s own record voter turnout in last Saturday’s election fell to about 36 per cent from the 44 per cent that it was in 2015.
“The military were dragged into the elections to suppress and scare away voters and facilitate rigging. That is how you hear ridiculously that war-torn Borno and Yobe states recorded higher percentage in voter turn-out than some states in the South-South geo-political zone.”
Meanwhile, the Southwest leaders of the party have urged Atiku and the NWC to immediately commence diligent prosecution of actions to expose the fraudulent elections with a serious view to reclaim the stolen mandate. While condemning the elections in its entirety and what it described as shoddy roles of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the zonal chapter said Nigeria cannot be taken seriously as a nation when its leadership does not give due credence to the electoral desires of the people and respect their franchise.
Addressing a press conference in Lagos yesterday, its National Vice Chairman, Southwest zone, Dr. Eddy Olafeso, former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Olabode George, the gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, members of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Ebenezer Babatope, Dr. Remi Akitoye and Zonal Secretary, Rev. Bunmi Jenyo said the shenanigans and violence that characterized the exercise across the country last Saturday, completely repudiated the gains of the 2015 elections.
According to the leaders: “We are all witnesses to the abuses that characterized the general elections of Saturday 23rd February and the double standards which ensured that electoral guidelines adopted for the election guaranteed different approaches to its conduct both in the Northern and Southern parts of our nation. “While it is compulsory that card reader be employed in the South and absolute requisite for ballot casting, it was put in abeyance in the North, yet the election was meant to produce the president of the Federal Republic, this is double standard and totally unacceptable.”
The leaders also condemned the spate of violence that characterized the elections across the Southwest particularly in Lagos, Oyo and Osun States, saying, it was important to state loud and clear that those crises were perpetrated by members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who were so scared of the defeat they would have suffered in those places where they prosecuted their violent agenda.
The leaders also called on non-indigenes in Lagos to come out on March 9 to vote for the candidates of their choice in the gubernatorial and State House of Assemblies election as they threw their weight behind Agbaje, saying, he (Agbaje) is the right choice and God-sent to deliver Lagos from the grips of Tinubu and his cohorts.