Ahead of the March 23 governorship supplementary elections in some states, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alerted Nigerians of a clandestine security meeting by the Buhari Presidency with certain top officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies, where they allegedly hatched a plot to hijack the polls.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP National Publicity Secretary, also exposed plot by army officers to subvert elections, especially in Rivers, Bauchi and Kano.
The party alleged that the security meeting directed the deployment of 30 Department of State Services (DSS) personnel and 300 mobile policemen to each of the states where supplementary elections have been scheduled to take place with standing instruction to ambush the process.
Ologbondiyan, who said that PDP is already leading and coasting to inevitable victory in all the affected states, cautioned the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Presidency to know that Nigerians will never be intimidated but will confront and crush any oppressive force that attempts to defy and subvert their will at the Supplementary polls.
The party spokesman said that PDP has information on every move by the APC to manipulate the electoral process.
“Our party is informed of how a top Army officer, at the meeting, directed the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, not to ever declare Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike as winner of the Rivers Governorship election, even when it is clear to all that he won the election.
“We also have details how a top military officer, who is from Bauchi state, at the meeting directed INEC Chairman not to declare our victorious Bauchi state governorship candidate, Sen. Bala Mohammed, as the winner the Bauchi state governorship election.
“The PDP is also privy to how a Director of one of our security agencies, who was at the meeting, undertook to use his agency to deliver Kano state to the APC.
“Consequent upon this ignoble plot, the security meeting has directed the deployment of 30 DSS personnel and 300 mobile policemen to each of the states where supplementary elections have been scheduled with a standing instruction to take over these respective states and make effort to ambush the process, seeing that the PDP is bound to win.
“In spite of all, the PDP wants the Buhari Presidency and the APC to come to terms with the fact that their conspiracies will be of no avail as our candidates are marching to unassailable victory with the people,” he said.
He reminded the military that “Nigerians will not hesitate to treat individuals in military uniform, who illegally involved in the supplementary election, as fake soldiers. After all, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, has declared that uniformed personnel, who helped APC to rig presidential election, were fake.
“It is imperative to state that under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, elections have been turned into warfare against the people but Nigerians will never allow a situation where states are forcefully taken over like spoils of war.
“It is also highly provocative that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu, is now taking orders from the military to cancel elections and alter results for the APC, instead of asserting the independence and impartiality of INEC under our laws.
“Such annexation of the Prof. Yakubu-led INEC by the Buhari Presidency is the only reason the governorship elections in Bauchi, Plateau, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Benue and Rivers states, which were won by the PDP are declared inconclusive.
“It is obvious that the elections were stalled in these states just because the PDP was in the lead. If the APC had been in the lead as in Ogun, INEC would not have batted an eyelid before pronouncing the results in favor of APC”.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
