The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has requested that security agencies summon Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders for questioning in response to repeated attacks on INEC offices and accusations by the PDP that some ruling party officials were determined to derailing the 2023 general election.
According to the APC, PDP must be made to back up its claims because it takes a thief to catch a thief.
Minister of State, Labour and Employment and Chief Spokesperson of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council PCC, Mr Festus Keyamo SAN gave the charge in a statement on Wednesday.
Keyamo was reacting to a press conference held by the PDP leadership, which accused members of the ruling party of encouraging violence before the election.
“We note with concern the incoherent and convoluted Press Statement issued today by the ethically-challenged Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yet again raising alarm about certain plots to incite violence and derail the 2023 polls and having ‘credible information’ as to those unleashing violence in certain parts of the country.
“This Press Statement, coming just barely 48 hours after one of its former officials was convicted by a court of law over illegal acts committed during an election over which the PDP government presided is just a pointer to the lowest level of moral debauchery to which the PDP has sunk. It operates without an iota of shame or respect for the Nigerian people.
READ ALSO: We Might Not Recover In Time For Elections, Should Attacks Continue – INEC Alerts
“Instead of continuous apologies for those grievous acts of election rigging, money-laundering and other electoral malpractices, it continues to pontificate,” said Keyamo.
He said based on its latest Press Statement about having ‘credible information’ about certain individuals plotting to derail the 2023 elections, including acts of arson already perpetrated on the facilities of INEC, “we therefore call on the law-enforcement agencies to, as a matter of urgency, invite the PDP leaders for immediate questioning”.
According to him, the PDP must provide information regarding the place and time such a meeting took place and those in attendance.Other information he said the PDP must provide are; “the identities of those who committed these acts of arson on the facilities of INEC, and the information must also include the identity of those who sponsored these individuals (if any)”.
He said the PDP should realize that an electioneering process is a very serious business and not a time to issue baseless and infantile statements out of want of something to say to the Nigerian people.
“The Nigerian people have since grown weary of the antics of the PDP.
“We suspect that the latest alarm by the PDP is one of a long list of diversionary measures adopted by the party to deflect attention from its crumbling edifice. Just yesterday, the major leaders of the PDP in Katsina State led by a former Katsina State Governor, Mr. Ibrahim Shehu Shema, and 10 out of the 14-member working committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) boycotted the party’s rally in the State and today they issue this statement to deflect attention from that disaster.
“We also state that this gimmick is nothing but crying wolf when there is none. We have said in an earlier statement on this issue some weeks ago that this is the same unnecessary scare-mongering tactics and crass vituperations they employed and engaged in before the 2019 election which led to their crushing defeat.
“We also said before and we repeat it here that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a thoroughbred democrat and one of the major architects of the democracy PDP and Nigerians enjoy today, so he should be the very last of the Presidential candidates to be accused of undemocratic conduct or underhand dealings in the electoral process.
“The PDP should not joke or play politics with grave security matters. Having ‘credible information’ as to plots and individuals relating to the attack on INEC offices currently, further plots to disrupt elections is, indeed, a matter of national security.
“This is therefore a notice to our last enforcement agencies to immediately invite the PDP leaders for questioning. After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief”.
