- The All Progressives Congress has called on other political parties to take over the role of the opposition from the Peoples Democratic Party until it clears itself of malady.
The All Progressives Congress has called on other political parties to take over the role of the opposition from the Peoples Democratic Party until it clears itself of malady.
But the PDP said by interpreting concerns over electoral violence as the ‘PDP’s malady,’ the APC had confirmed apprehensions that it was the mastermind of the violence.
The ruling party said the PDP had become disillusioned by the string of election victories recorded by the APC in the 2019 presidential election, majority governorship wins, National Assembly seats and other governorship elections in Ekiti, Osun, Kano, Kogi and Bayelsa states.
The APC said this in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu.
It reminded the PDP how its past administrations which enjoyed record earnings frittered the nation’s commonwealth, claiming that with limited resources, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration had continued to achieve several visible milestones.
The ruling party said the recent threat by the PDP’s National Chairman, Uche Secondus, that the party might not participate in future elections in the country was a confirmation that the party had failed as the opposition.
The statement read, “This is exactly our fear. Is this not a confirmation of the APC’s earlier position that Nigeria was fast becoming a one-party state as a result of the rudderless and soulless of the PDP, Nigeria’s supposed main opposition party?
“No doubt, our country deserves a strong and vibrant opposition to play its conventional role in the polity and to deepen democracy.
“The PDP has shown crass and shocking incapacity to perform that role. As a party that believes in democracy and progressive politics, we are worried by this obvious vacuum.”
The ruling party wondered why the PDP, as an opposition party, had not engaged in any rigorous and intelligent interrogation of the current administration’s policies and programmes.
It said instead, the PDP had become busy with “Just idle chatter, propagation of fake news, post-election delusions and other unpatriotic conducts. This is dangerous for our democracy.
“The APC hereby invites other registered political parties to step up and perform the crucial opposition role the PDP has failed so woefully to play.”
The APC debunked an allegation that it had been conniving with the Independent National Electoral Commission to record the string of election victories in the recent elections, saying rather that the PDP had become a major beneficiary of its election misfortunes.
The statement added, “Is the APC surprised by the PDP’s pointless outbursts? No! This has become the PDP’s stock-in-trade and coping mechanisms following the PDP’s rejection in 2015.
“The same PDP has maintained a graveyard silence over the election robberies in Zamfara and Rivers states. The APC was punished for allegedly not conducting proper primaries in Zamfara State, while the PDP got rewarded in Sokoto and Kano for not conducting any primaries at all.
“In Osun, Ekiti and Bayelsa states, why will the APC ever contemplate ‘conniving’ with INEC in elections where voters had rejected the PDP and their candidates long before the election day?”
The APC challenged the PDP to name one politician in Kogi who had the status and goodwill to give it the imagined votes it was claiming after the election.
In its reaction, the PDP called on security agencies to question leaders of the APC over the violence that characterised the November 16 governorship and senatorial elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states.
The party made the call in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan.
Ologbondiyan said the PDP’s demand was based on alleged attempts by the APC to dismiss nationwide calls for electoral reforms.
He said, “By gloating and interpreting national and international concerns over bloodletting and violence in our elections as the PDP’s ‘malady,’ the APC has further confirmed apprehensions that it is the mastermind of the horrific violence and forceful invasion of polling units to aid their rigging plots.
“Our party invites Nigerians to note that only a mastermind and beneficiary of a crime would seek ways of dismissing, covering or diverting attention from the crime.”
Ologbondiyan said about 10 Nigerians were reportedly beheaded in Bayelsa while over 22 others were killed in Kogi, including Mrs Salome Abuh, who was burnt alive in her home.
He added, “It is also no longer strange that in spite of the condemnation of the brutal murder of Abuh and calls for arrest of the culprits by Nigerians and the international community, the perpetrators are being shielded by the APC.
“Nigerians now have more insight into why persons, who were claimed to have been arrested by security agencies in connection with the crime, have neither been paraded nor arraigned before any court of competent jurisdiction.”
