National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari in his alleged desperation to cling on to power has given marching orders to the Nigerian military and Police to help leaders of the All Progressives Congress oppress voters.
The PDP chairman noted that the President’s remarks at APC National caucus meeting on Monday amounted to what he called a declaration of war on Nigeria voters and a direct incitement against them.
He said such pronouncements by the President remained the first of its kind in Nigeria where he said a President would openly threaten the lives of the citizens.
The National Chairman said that by the President’s directive, the top leaders of the APC have gotten sweeping order to move about with the military at their constituencies to harass and intimidate INEC staff and the opposition agents with a view to scaring them away to enable them use thugs perform their result replacement strategy.
He also alleged that the Minister of Transportation and Director General of Buhari’s campaign, Rotimi Amaechi had last Thursday, 48 hours to the rescheduled election entered Okirika in Okirika Local Government Area of Rivers State with a troop of soldiers moving like a General commander, ostensibly to scare away voters whom he knew were not going to vote for his party.
In a statement in Abuja on Monday, Secondus said: “The President’s confirmation that he has directed the service chiefs to kill Nigerians is nothing but a predetermined script hatched by the ruling party to create voter apathy and implement their result replacement plans using thugs protected by the military.”
He alleged that President Buhari had never been sincere in conducting a free and fair election, an impression he said was confirmed by his refusal to sign the amended Electoral Act which he said would have facilitated a credible election in the country.
According to him, “In all democracies world over, elections are civil matters that is usually handled by civil security like Police. Why the involvement of our military in this matter when they have enough security challenges to tackle?”