The All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday alleged new plans by the presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to scuttle the forthcoming elections using the National Council of State.The charge came as the APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), in a separate charge, accused the PDP of working in cahoots with the presidency to re-enact a political impasse similar to June 12, 1993 election.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at a press conference in Lagos alleged that the Presidency had commenced a desperate lobby of members of the National Council of State to move the body to push for the postponement of the election. The body is expected to meet this week.
The lobby of the NCS which includes former heads of state, presiding officers of the National Assembly, state governors among others, the party said, was besides ongoing efforts to use the courts to disqualify Buhari from the election. Mohammed said as at yesterday six different judicial actions had been commenced against Buhari and all supposedly sponsored by the PDP.
He said: “In addition to using the courts, they have resorted to lobbying some members of the Council of State to support their clamour for election postponement. We hope the council, which is due to meet later in the week, will put national interest above narrow, partisan considerations and reject the poisoned chalice of election postponement.
“We urge the Council of State not to allow itself to be used to scuttle the forthcoming elections because it is in the interest of Nigeria and her people that the elections proceed as scheduled.
“We call on Nigerians to remain vigilant, especially in the days ahead, and to continue to reject all attempts by anti-democratic forces to cling to or get power through means that are not democratic. We urge our members and supporters in particular to eschew violence under any guise, even in the face of the most egregious provocations, so as not to play into the hands of those working to scuttle the elections.”
Buhari cautions of new plots
Meanwhile, Buhari has cautioned of new plots by the PDP and the presidency to scuttle the country’s democracy through a re-enactment of the crisis that followed the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
In a statement issued by his campaign spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, Buhari said: “We want to call the attention of Nigerians and the international community to the repeated calls for the postponement of the forthcoming presidential election.
“We do not have any difficulty to discern that these groups are working out the script of some agents in the ruling party. We also want to call on the security agencies in the country to stop any further public parade by this outlawed group.
“Let us remind Nigerians that the power of our democracy has been tested in the past by this outlawed group during the June 12, 1993 presidential election and our democracy won and will win again.”
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