FG, PDP in verbal war over Saturday poll

…Opposition party plans to orchestrate violence, cause panic, FG alleges

…PDP to FG: False alarm will not help you

Bonaventure Melah and Tunde Opalana, Abuja

The Federal Government and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Tuesday, engaged in verbal war over allegation that the erstwhile ruling party plans to scuttle the presidential and National Assembly elections slated for Saturday. Raising the allegation, the Federal Government said it has uncovered plots hatched by the PDP to instigate violence with a view to causing panic and voter apathy in some parts of the country. In a statement signed by Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and released in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister said the plot was hatched by the PDP in furtherance of their overall agenda to discredit the election before Nigerians and the international community as well as create constitutional crisis. According to him, the plan has lent credence to the alarm raised earlier by the Federal Government on 21st January and 3rd February, 2019 that the PDP was planning to scuttle the election and, where that fails, discredit it. The Minister said that in the days ahead, PDP bigwigs, including its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, his running mate Peter Obi, PDP Governors and others, are planning a world press conference in order to level frivolous and unfounded allegations against the Federal Government and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Alhaji Mohammed said that part of the false allegations the PDP has planned to make is that the Presidency, in connivance with the APC, want to force the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to announce presidential election results that are favourable to the government in power, on the basis of the false premise that the APC’s intelligence team is worried that the ruling party would lose the elections. He said the PDP bigwigs also plan to use their world press conference to further disparage the Buhari Administration as well as the ruling APC, with a view to painting an unfavourable image of both to Nigerians and the international community and to put the government on the defensive in the run-up to the polls. The Minister said the PDP’s last joker is a two-hour live press conference to be addressed by the PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan, on February 14, the last day of electioneering campaign, to chronicle all their concocted allegations and lies against the ruling government, cast aspersion on government and ruling party officials and throw innuendos here and there. ”As electioneering campaigns wind down, the PDP has realised that it cannot possibly win a free, fair and credible poll, it has thus resorted to engaging in red herring, hauling insults and abuses at Federal Government and ruling party officials and making outlandish allegations with a view to creating a sense of panic and crisis. ”The truth is that President Muhammadu Buhari, a man respected globally for his integrity, has continuously assured that the elections will be free, fair, credible and peaceful. He has warmly welcomed observers, both local and foreign, because he has nothing to hide, and because he is sure that the achievements of his Administration will win him re-election. ”We are therefore calling on all Nigerians and the international community to disregard any attempt to scuttle or discredit the polls. We urge observers to keep an open mind. There is no cause for alarm, except in the warped imagination of the PDP, which has entered the panic mode and is already ruing the loss of another general election even before it has been held,” the Minister concluded. Reacting to the allegations, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said no amount of fabrications, false alarm, blackmail and resort to violence by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency can sway Nigerians or help their plots to rig the 2019 Presidential election. The party said the Buhari Presidency’s fresh attempt to use its chief propagandist, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to lay further false allegations on the PDP has failed, because Nigerians already know those plotting to scuttle the elections by inciting violence and issuing death threats against others. PDP National publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement, said the Minister failed to react to President Muhammadu Buhari statement in Zamfara State on Sunday where he urged his supporters to get ready to fight and unleash violence on other Nigerians. “What has Lai Mohammed to say to the threat by his party’s chieftain and governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, who declared that members of the global democratic institution working for peaceful election in our country will return to their countries in body bags? “Lai Mohammed has nothing to say to the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi, who raised a war chant and threatened Nigerians at the APC Presidential rally in Port Harcourt on Tuesday. “It is clear to all that violence, death threats and plot to disrupt the elections have become an official policy of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, having realised that President Buhari has no chance in the February 16 Presidential election”, he said. The party said Nigerians are all aware that it is ready and working hard for this election and that its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has been traversing the nooks and crannies of our country campaigning and receiving overwhelming support by Nigerians, across the board, who have already reached a consensus to elect him as the next President of our country. The PDP therefore charged Nigerians to remain alert, resist the incitements of the APC, protect one another, insist that the Presidential election must hold on February 16 and do all, within their legitimate rights, to protect their votes to the very end. In another development, the PDP said fresh facts available to it have shown that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is responsible for the burning of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices in various parts of the country. The party said it already has the details of how the APC mobilised misguided elements in its fold to burn INEC offices and destroy electoral materials and equipment in Plateau, Abia and Anambra State. “Our party is also privy to clandestine plots by the APC to burn INEC offices in some other states, so as to paralyze the commission’s operations in such states, and pave the way for the isolation and postponement of Presidential elections in those states; after which it plans to unleash compromised security agencies to muzzle the shifted polls in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari. “Having realised that President Buhari has no chance in a credible, free and fair general election, the APC now plots a violent staggering of the polls so as to use security forces to re-enact the same rigging formula it used in the 2018 Ekiti and Osun governorship elections. “In attacking INEC offices and destroying the card readers, APC seeks to cripple the commission’s use of full benefit of technology that will guarantee a credible biometric voter accreditation. “The PDP in very unequivocal terms insists that it will never accept any attempt by the APC to postpone the Presidential election in any state of the federation. The Presidential election must hold in all the states on the 16th of February and President Buhari will be served his defeat certificate”, Ologbodiyan said. The PDP charged Nigerians to resist the desperation of the APC, for which it has now resorted to burning INEC offices. It as well charged INEC to note that the APC is after it facilities and as such put stronger measures to protect itself from the assaults of this desperate party.