Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday alleged that the ongoing membership registration exercise by the All Progressives Congress (APC) is nothing but a plan by the opposition party to announce jumbo figures of over 29 million membership in order to incite the public against the results of the 2015 elections.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh, who disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja at a World Press Conference, urged the nation to be wary of the opposition party’s antics to discredit the 2015 general elections even before they are conducted.
Chief Metuh accused APC of plotting to announce a phantom figure of 29 million registered voters across Nigeria as a process towards causing mayhem in the country if the party is not eventually declared winner at the 2015 polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The party also alleged that the APC is using INEC’s designated polling centres for its membership registration exercise as part of its antics to deceive Nigerians that it had the approval of the electoral commission.
It then accused the electoral body of not speaking out against the opposition party’s use of designated polling centres for the registration exercise, instead of its (APC) offices, as being done by other political parties.
“Our great party has received reports from various states calling our attention to an ongoing, well-planned, clandestine moves by the All Progressives Congress to lay mines in the way of a successful conduct of 2015 general elections, using its nationwide membership registration as a ruse.
“It’s very unfortunate that while the PDP-led Federal Government is solidifying the foundation of a credible electoral system it has already laid, and INEC yet to release the final details of the 2015 general elections timetable (which is still a year ahead), the APC is already introducing weird inventions calculated to torpedo the process and blow sky-high the huge expectations of Nigerians and the international community.
“We are all aware that the APC is currently conducting a nationwide registration of its members. The Peoples Democratic Party wholeheartedly welcomes this development as it tallies with our avowed commitment to political plurality and the freeing of the democratic space so as to enable every Nigerian find expression on whatever political platform (they) so wish. This is because we firmly believe in competitive democracy as an antidote to mediocrity and complacency. That informed the choice, the resolve and the commitment of the PDP-led Federal Government to the rule of law, due process, freedom of information and the non-negotiability of free, fair and credible elections.
“However, it is clear from the statements, actions and the activities of the leaders of the APC that the opposition has only been changing names without changing its character. Their commitment to being a credible alternative leaves a yawning gap in the face of its furious self-willed handicap to genuinely contribute in building the fabrics of our democracy.
“Our investigations revealed that part of the plot by the APC is to use this fraudulent membership registration exercise to hype a phantom public support, after which it will declare a particular bogus figure and create a false impression of massive public followership ahead of the 2015 general elections.
“We wish to alert Nigerians, therefore, to the incontrovertible evidence at our disposal to the effect that the APC is sadly and currently using every foul means at its disposal to build a particular membership figure, running into tens of millions, which it intends to use as a justification to fault, dispute, reject and subsequently take to violence when it loses the 2015 general elections.
“This fraudulent membership figure, meant to create an unexisting mass followership, is to be maniacally presented, projected and defended by the APC, using its well known unethically hypodermic propaganda tools as an anticipated real voter strength, below which it will carry out its threat to unleash mayhem on the nation as contained in its allegory of ‘the monkey, the baboon and blood’.
“To achieve this, the APC officials and members have been going round the wards and polling centres, using INEC polling locations and materials as well as lying to unsuspecting Nigerians that the party’s membership registration is an INEC voter registration exercise for the 2015 elections. This is to hoodwink them into registering as members of APC.”
Metuh also alleged that in the states controlled by the APC, pupils and students were persuaded to get the passport photographs of their parents and guardians, “which are thereafter secretly affixed to the APC membership forms without the knowledge of the innocent students or their parents.”
The ruling party said the unlawful use of INEC’s polling booths was a clear violation of laid down electoral norms and rules that safeguard their sanctity for the purpose of elections and against illegal conversion for partisan reasons.
Metuh said further: “Indeed, we find it shocking and curious that INEC, whose responsibility is to safeguard against this sort of aberration has not only kept mum as the APC fraudulently uses its name for this infamous agenda, but has folded its arms in the face of this abuse and illegal conversion of its property, therefore, raising suspicions of duplicity in this well-orchestrated design to sabotage the 2015 general elections.
“We wish to remind the APC that no political party has the monopoly of mischief and that this level of grand deceit is actually a monumental crime against democracy. While the PDP is desirous of winning elections, we do not wish to descend to the level of illegality, violence and deceit.
But the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, said on Friday that the electoral commission “has no control over the public places being used by the APC for their membership registration exercise.”
“The places, as cited by the PDP, are public places which INEC does not have control over,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment