The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, and the ruling All Progressives Congress on Sunday accused each other of nursing different agenda over the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill.
While the PDP alleged that the President refused to sign the bill because of the plan of his party to rig the election, the ruling party said the PDP also had a hidden agenda over its insistence that the bill must be signed.
The National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, who spoke with one of our correspondents, also said his party would not accept the outcome of the elections if polls were rigged.
He said the essence of the bill was to deepen the nation’s electoral laws and system, wondering why the President would refuse to sign it.
Secondus said going by the indices before him and the leaders of the PDP, the APC was not planning to win the elections, but only to rig.
He, however, said that Nigerians and the international community would be watching how the President and the APC would rig the elections since he said both had been rejected by majority of Nigerians.
He said, “The new law was made to help us achieve what we couldn’t achieve in 2015 by legalising the use of card readers, transmission of votes.
“But because majority of votes the President had in 2015 came through the backdoors and unusual ways, he wants the trend to continue in 2019. He wants the Independent National Electoral Commission to continue to accredit underage voters manually; he wants a situation where it will be easy for miscreants to hijack ballot boxes and all that.
“We, however, want to say this without any fear: PDP will not accept the outcome of any rigged election anywhere in the country. If they think we will just fold our hands as we did in 2015 when they went away with a stolen mandate, they must be joking.”
He added, “We will insist that things must be done in accordance with the law and the Constitution. Let Nigerians and the international community know that both the President and his party, with the support of INEC and security agencies, are not ready for free, fair and credible elections.”
PDP seeking to blackmail everybody to submission – APC
The APC, however, disagreed, wondering why the former ruling party was bent on the signing of the new law by the President.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, who spoke with one of our correspondents, said the allegation by Secondus represented the “cry of a confused party seeking to blackmail everybody to submission.”
He claimed the PDP’s position betrayed the hidden agenda it had behind the Electoral Act amendment.
“The President withheld assent and explained that it was because the timing was not in the interest of the nation among other reasons.
“What is the PDP afraid of? The Electoral Act sought to be amended was enacted under the PDP government, did they use it to rig? Maybe Nigerians should ask them why they think it could be used to rig elections.
“They should stop this cry-baby attitude and tell Nigerians what they had done in the previous 16 years that would make them want to return to government so soon,” he said.