The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says President Muhamamdu Buhari’s statement that he will not interfere with the supplementary elections is a direct confession that he used his influence to rig the February 23 presidential election.
Garba Shehu, spokesman of Buhari, had said some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) expected the president to direct the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to change results of the forthcoming supplementary elections in favour of the ruling party but the president would not do so.
INEC had declared the March 9 elections inconclusive in some states and fixed March 23 for supplementary polls.
Shehu said as a leader who had sworn to uphold the constitution, Buhari would not interfere with the exercise.
But in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP spokesman, the party described what the president said as a “subterfuge to divert public attention from APC’s rigging plots” ahead of the rerun.
It called on Nigerians, especially those in states where the supplementary elections have been scheduled to hold, to be wary of the “antics of the Buhari Presidency as it has never been committed to a free, fair and credible elections”.
“The Presidency’s confession that APC members are mounting pressure on President Buhari to help them to rig the supplementary elections further confirms the Buhari Presidency’s manipulative and rigging capacity, including militarisation of the electoral process, instigating of violence and alteration of results, as were freely used by the APC in the Presidential election,” the PDP said.
“Nigerians can recall that ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, President Buhari had promised to allow for a free, fair, transparent and credible process, only for his Presidency and party, the APC, to engage in downright manipulations at INEC, deployment of military and thugs to intimidate and suppress voters, as well as outright alteration of results delivered from the polling units.
