The All Progressives Congress has accused the Peoples and the Presidency of being the brains behind the ongoing campaign for election postponement, saying this is in spite of “serial denials and the phantom assurances” that the party has is ready for the polls.
”There is no clearer indication that the PDP and the Presidency are the puppeteers behind the election shift campaign than Wednesday’s newspaper advertorial plainly campaigning for the polls to be shifted,” the party said in a statement in Lagos on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
”This advert, which has the picture of President Goodluck Jonathan and the logo of the PDP – meaning they will be the sole beneficiaries of the postponement they are seeking – leaves no one in doubt that the ruling party and the presidency are pathologically dishonest, deliberately deceptive and chronically terrified about the elections,” it said.
The APC said now that all pretences were off and the sponsors of the election postponement campaign had been unveiled, Nigerians must reject them and their campaign.
The party added, ”The campaign, which is hinged on the fact that many Nigerians have not collected their Permanent Voters Cards, is not sincere. If it is, the PDP and the Presidency would have instead been urging Nigerians to go all out and collect their PVCs so the election can hold. Why is this so impossible for them to do?
”Like, we said earlier, what prevents the Federal Government from declaring a three-day public holidays to give Nigerians the opportunity to collect their PVCs? Why is it that only the PDP and its sponsored groups and individuals are the ones leading the campaign for election postponement, even as our party, the APC, has been campaigning for Nigerians to go and collect their PVCs?
”Is it not instructive that at least 26 political parties have joined the no-postponement campaign, while the PDP/Presidency, as well as the lick-spittle individuals and groups who have been compromised one way or another, continue to beat the drums of election shift?”
It wondered why the PDP and the Presidency would be second-guessing the Independent National Electoral Commission, which had said it was ready to go ahead with the elections, and that it would be distributing PVCs until the eve of the election.
While urging its members, supporters in particular and all Nigerians in general to remain vigilant and be firm in rejecting the planned election postponement, the APC appealed to the Chief Justice of the Federation to ensure that the courts were not used as tools to sabotage the elections and indeed the nation’s democracy.
APC stated, ”We know that the next frontier in the ongoing battle by the PDP and Presidency to get our candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, disqualified and have the elections postponement, is the court. We know they will seek to secure spurious injunctions to scuttle the elections, following the footsteps of the Association for Better Nigeria in 1993. This is why we are appealing to the CJN.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we are ready for the elections and we will not, under any circumstance, support any shift in the dates for the elections, which were fixed more than a year ago.
”If the PDP and the Presidency are not afraid of anything, we challenge them to come out today to denounce the campaign for election postponement, dissociate themselves from it and announce unequivocally that they are ready for the elections. Failure to do that, they stand accused of working hard to sabotage the elections and truncate the nation’s democracy.”