Burnt INEC Offices: PDP Alleges APC’s Complicity

BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – Just days away from the February 16 presidential and National Assembly elections, the political blame game continues with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accusing the All Progressives Congress (APC) of complicity in the arson visited on some Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices in three states.

The PDP alleged that with President Buhari facing imminent defeat and shame in a ‘credible, free and fair general elections’, the APC is plotting a violent staggering of the polls in order to deploy security forces and re-enact its rigging formula used during the 2018 Ekiti and Osun states’ gubernatorial polls.

According to the main opposition party, emerging facts and proofs clearly finger APC as being behind he unfortunate fire incidents witnessed in some INEC offices across the country.

PDP’s National Publicity Secretary and Director, Media and Publicity of its Presidential Campaign Organization, Kola Ologbondiyan urged the electoral umpire to watch its back and be careful, alleging that the APC is after INEC’s facilities as its back-up plans to rig the forthcoming elections.

Ologbondiyan claimed that the opposition has in its possession proofs detailing how APC is mobilizing some misguided elements to attack INEC offices and destroy electoral materials and equipment in Plateau, Abia and Anambra states

Below is the full statement titled: ‘PDP Accuses APC of Burning INEC Offices’

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says fresh facts available to it have shown that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is responsible for the burning of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices in various parts of the country.

The PDP already has the details of how the APC mobilized misguided elements in its fold to burn INEC offices and destroy electoral materials and equipment in Plateau, Abia and Anambra states.

Our party is also privy to clandestine plots by the APC to burn INEC offices in some other states, so as to paralyze the commission’s operations in such states, and pave the way for the isolation and postponement of Presidential elections in those states; after which it plans to unleash compromised security agencies to muzzle the shifted polls in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Having realized that President Buhari has no chance in a credible, free and fair general election, the APC now plots a violent staggering of the polls so as to use security forces to re-enact the same rigging formula it used in the 2018 Ekiti and Osun governorship elections.

In attacking INEC offices and destroying the card readers, APC seeks to cripple the commission’s use of full benefit of technology that will guarantee a credible biometric voter accreditation.

The PDP in very unequivocal terms insists that it will never accept any attempt by the APC to postpone the Presidential election in any state of the federation. The Presidential election must hold in all the states on the 16th of February and President Buhari will be served his defeat certificate.

The PDP therefore charges Nigerians to resist the desperation of the APC, for which it has now resorted to burning INEC offices. The party also charges INEC to note that the APC is after it facilities and as such put stronger measures to protect itself from the assaults of this desperate party.”