Fresh poll delay should attract global sanctions –APC

The All Progressives Congress has
again raised the alarm over what it
calls the relentless scheming by
the President Goodluck Jonathan
administration and the Peoples
Democratic Party to push for
another postponement of the 2015
general elections.
This, the APC alleged, was aimed at
allowing the PDP to perfect its
rigging plan.
The opposition party urged the
international community not to
hesitate to impose sanctions on
whoever scuttles the general
elections scheduled to begin on
March 28.
In a statement issued in Dubai on
Sunday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,
the APC said the President
Jonathan-led PDP administration’s
multi-pronged efforts to prevent
the elections from holding as
rescheduled include; the use of
some 23 portfolio political parties
to seek a further shift in the
election dates and the
destabilisation of INEC’s election
plan through the orchestrated
removal of its Chairman, Prof.
Attahiru Jega.
According to the APC, the same 23
satellite parties of the PDP that
were used to push for the six-week
postponement of the elections
have again started testing the
waters by pushing for a further shift
in the elections in the six-states of
the North-East, ostensibly to allow
the conclusion of the counter-
insurgency battle and also to allow
those displaced to return home.
“The plan is to use the same bogey
of insecurity in the North-East to
push for another postponement in
the elections. The signs are
ominous indeed.
“The body language of the
President and his party does not
support the holding of elections.
They are mortally afraid of losing
because the use of PVCs and card
readers have thwarted their
rigging plans,’’ APC said.
The APC also said while the 23
parties were pushing for the
elections to be further postponed,
the Jonathan administration and
the PDP were simultaneously
forging ahead with their plan to
remove Jega and replace him with
a malleable acting chairman who,
they believed, would do their
bidding.
The statement further said, “Once
they remove Jega, his replacement
will either seek more time to
organise the polls or simply
jettison the plan to use card
readers, thereby opening the door
for those who have been buying up
PVCs to use them.
“Is it not interesting that the same
administration that has been
flaunting free and fair elections as a
key achievement has now gone for
the jugular of the same man who
organised those polls?
“Is the man they don’t want not the
same person who organised the
2011 polls which the administration
has described as free, fair and
credible? What has now gone
wrong between them and their
poster boy for successful
elections?” it queried.
The opposition party warned of
dire consequences if the polls were
further shifted. It hinged its fears
on the obvious constitutional crisis
that was capable of endangering
the country’s democracy and
destabilising the country in its
entirety.
The party called on Nigerians,
especially the civil society, to be
very vigilant in the days ahead, “as
the cloud of uncertainty becomes
thicker and the vultures begin to
circle.”
It also called on the international
community to consider imposing
stiff sanctions on key members of
the Jonathan administration if they
forced another postponement or
scuttle the polls.

Lobatan