The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on security agencies to place the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on watch list over incessant pre-election violence across the country.
The party also urged that urgent steps be taken to halt implementation of its presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s directive to his party members to deploy violence and underhand dealings in the 2023 general election.
Debo Ologunagba, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, made the call yesterday in Abuja during an interactive session with journalists.
Ologunagba quoting Tinubu’s statement during his Chatham House engagement in London where he said, “Political power is not going to be served in a restaurant. They don’t serve it a la carte. At all cost, fight for it, grab it and run with it.”
He said the APC and its presidential candidate know they have no chance at all in the coming elections, having been rejected by Nigerians because of their multiple failures, recklessness, humongous corruption, violence, continuous infliction of pains, hardship and life-discounting experiences on Nigerians in the last seven and half years.
Ologunagba noted that Nigerians are not ready to continue with a hopelessly corrupt, miserably incompetent and viciously insensitive political party, which has mortgaged the future of the country with an accumulated N77 trillion debt as revealed by the Debt Management Office (DMO).
He stressed that this explains why the APC and its presidential candidate allegedly continued to promote and encourage violence in various parts of the country, including attacking facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ologunagba said: “The PDP also demands that security agencies should place APC leaders on watchlist and take urgent steps to halt APC’s implementation of Asiwaju Tinubu’s directives to his party members, as contained in the recently leaked video, to deploy violence and underhand dealings in the 2023 general elections.”
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The PDP spokesperson also said the main opposition party had been following the many narratives being promoted by the APC with the view to blackmail critical election stakeholders to accede to its design to postpone the 2023 general election, particularly the February 25, 2023 Presidential election.
He hinted that the PDP had earlier alerted the nation of a well-oiled plot by the APC to orchestrate the security situation and promote circumstances to warrant the postponement of the 2023 general election by the INEC.
According to him, “The APC and its leaders are desperate to use their doomsday orchestrations to frighten and blackmail INEC to alter the electoral schedule after which the APC will take advantage of the situation to unsettle the general election, foist a constitutional crisis and truncate the nation’s democratic process.”
Ologunagba stressed that the ultimate intent of the APC was to use such unfounded circumstances to derail the entire electoral process and allegedly impose an undemocratic situation on the country.
The PDP insisted without equivocation that the February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly election date was sacrosanct.
He said the “February 25, 2023 date is already locked in for the Presidential and National Assembly elections, the security agencies have given their assurances, the federal government has also given its assurance; Nigerians are ready for election and will not accept any postponement of elections under any guise whatsoever.”
The PDP, therefore, charged INEC, as an independent institution not to succumb to the blackmails of the APC, but focus on its preparations and fix its eyes on delivering a free, fair, transparent and credible election on February 25, 2023.
He stressed that Atiku was poised to win the majority of votes cast across the country and secure 25 per cent in all the states of the federation to emerge President on the very first ballot.
