The All Progressives Congress
Presidential Campaign Council has
raised the alarm over an alleged
plot by the Federal Government to
deliberately cause trouble in Lagos
and five other states on March 28 in
order to avert defeat at the poll.
The opposition’s allegation was
contained in a statement by the
Director of Media of the APC
campaign, Mallam Garba Shehu.
“Credible information available to
the campaign from within the
Federal Government has revealed
that the PDP administration has
hatched a plan to destabilise
elections in APC states namely,
Lagos, Imo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Kano
and Sokoto in order to sabotage
the presidential election and
democracy in the country,” the
party said.
Attempts to get a reaction from the
Special Adviser to the President on
Political Matters, Prof. Rufai Alkali,
were unsuccessful. Calls to his
mobile telephone indicated that it
was switched off.
However, the Deputy National
Publicity Secretary of the PDP,
Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, dismissed the
APC’s allegations.
“We will not dignify such wild
allegations with a response,” the
PDP deputy spokesman said.
The APC statement said the crisis to
be fomented in the named states
“is clearly intended to generate a
crisis of serious proportions that
would lead to either the
postponement or the outright
cancellation of the election in order
to exclude the states from the first
round of voting.”
It added, “By this plan, the
Independent National Electoral
Commission will be forced to cancel
the elections and have these states
conduct rescheduled elections a
week later.
“The whole idea, according to
these credible sources, is that the
government wants to buy time yet
again, gain energy and pump
resources into a renewed
crackdown on popular will in those
states. They will deploy the entire
muscle and resources of the
Federal Government to steal the
election in the six states.”
The APCPCO statement alleged
further that “100 trained saboteurs”
had been deployed to each of the
states to carry out the “felonious
acts.”
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
