June 12: Buhari APC, Are Tormented By Guilt of Violating Electoral Processes – PDP
- PDP derides Buhari for main events of inauguration to June 12.
- Says it will reclaim its ‘stolen mandate’.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) for thinking that moving major events of its planned Presidential inauguration from May 29 to June 12, the democracy Day, can confer any form of legitimacy to the outcome of the 2019 Presidential election which it alleged was rigged.
Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday also pointed that inviting world leaders to the inauguration cannot confer international recognition for what the opposition termed a stolen mandate.
“It is clear that the Buhari Presidency and the APC, being tormented by the guilt of violating our electoral processes, can no longer boldly approach the oath book on May 29, due to the burden of illegitimacy and now seeks refuge in the sanctity of June 12, our Democracy Day.
Ologbondiyan further claimed that the ruling government and the APC from have demonstrated that they are totally averse to democracy.
“They should, therefore, steer clear of our Democracy Day, having violated all our democratic ethos in manipulating the Presidential elections and upturning the mandate of the people; the same injustice which Chief MKO Abiola, the symbol of June 12, fought and died for.
“Chief Abiola stood and died for democracy. Any attempt therefore to schedule any event related to the outcome of the rigged 2019 Presidential election on June 12 would be an open desecration of the sanctity of the Democracy day and a direct assault to the sensibilities of Nigerians,” he said.
While stating that the opposition party rejected what it described as ‘absurd’ desperation by the Buhari Presidency and the APC to overshadow the import of our Democracy Day and stifle the quest by Nigerians to vent their anger against the democratic violations of the APC administration in the last four years, the PDP counsel the “Presidency to note that trying to seize our Democracy Day cannot confer legitimacy to a rigged election, neither can it erase the litany of violations including human rights abuses, assault on democratic institutions, particularly the Legislature and the Judiciary; clamp down on opposition figures, clipping of the media, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention of citizens, and the rigging of the 2019 Presidential election.”
The PDP, therefore, stated that what is paramount to the majority of Nigerians now is the retrieval of its stolen mandate, which they freely gave to Atiku Abubakar, at the tribunal “so that our nation can enjoy the values of freedom, justice, fairness and equity embedded in our constitutional democracy.”
