The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised the alarm over pressure on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to replace Electoral Officers (EOs) with All Progressives Congress (APC) loyalists in PDP strongholds, ahead of the rescheduled national elections this Saturday.
The party says it is aware of plans of secret meetings at the Presidential Villa where the leadership of INEC was ordered to ensure the replacement of EOs with APC members.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan accused the Department of State Services (DSS) of interfering with operations of critical departments of INEC including the ICT Department to do APC bidding.
He said that at a meting attended by top government officials on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, “Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) were directed to issue out result sheets to APC agents to falsify and declare results in favour of the APC.
“Intelligence at our disposal reveals that the INEC Chairman has succumbed to back channel bullying by the Buhari Presidency and APC to accede to their demand to replace Electoral Officers (EOs) in various critical states with APC agents who will vehemently execute President Buhari’s rigging plans in the February 23, Presidential election”.
The PDP also claims to have details of the meeting last night by President Buhari, some APC northern governor and Service Chiefs, where pressure was mounted on the service chiefs in connection with the APC rigging plans.
“We alert Nigerians that the INEC Chairman has been intimidated with threat of ‘Onnoghen’s treatment’ to accept a list of APC members and agents and post them to serve as EOs in various states including Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Bauchi, Akwa-Ibom, Zamfara, Benue, Sokoto, Lagos, Plateau, Taraba, Borno, Adamawa, Kogi, Delta, Ebonyi among others.
“These APC EOs have been briefed to ensure the diversion of sensitive electoral materials from designated polling centers, delay the accreditation process, so as to frustrate voters’ enthusiasm, compromise the collation process to allocate and announce fictitious results for President Buhari and muddle up the process to pave way for result cancellation where it becomes impossible to rig for President Buhari.”
The party stressed that the killing of ballot box snatchers order issued by President Buhari is designed to clamp-down and even kill patriotic Nigerians who will want to confront and stop the APC from executing their rigging plots on the day of election.
However, the PDP assures INEC, security agents and President Buhari that their evil plans will definitely come to naught, saying Nigerians are now, more than ever before, determined in rallying with its party, to confront, resist and stop President Buhari and the APC on their plot to rig the February 23 election.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
