BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Presidential candidate of People’s Trust (PT, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), of playing politics with the nation’s stability through the way and manner they are handling the Electoral Act.
He noted that Nigeria might be damaged beyond redemption in four years, should Nigerians succumb to the plot by the APC to hand themselves a fresh term through a faulty process.
The PT’s presidential candidate said the path of honour is for President Buhari to commit himself to a transparent poll and ignore the counsel of palace courtiers and political war mongers intent on moving the country in the path of further destruction.
Olaweoo-Hashim, who said these at an interactive session with reporters in Lagos against the backdrop of President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to give assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, said rather than present themselves as statesmen, the candidates were obsessed with immediate partisan gains, adding that the APC and PDP were falling below standard.
In the words of Olawepo-Hashim: “The president is conducting himself like a typical Nigerian politician of the era of political decline, rather than behaving as a patriot that I have always thought he is.
“By his actions, he is simply saying let me benefit from the fraudulent process for my 2019 bid. You can push for the new law in 2023 when I will not be contesting.”
He noted with regret that in spite of the spiraling poverty in the land, insurgency by Boko Haram, violence in the North East and North West, incipient Shiite rebellion due to high handedness, massive insecurity and bloodletting in various states, Buhari is only thinking of how to remain in office.
Olawepo-Hashim said that the PDP-led legislature had ample time to correct the perceived lacunas in the Electoral Act, which they had created in the first instance, but were rather distracting the polity with it.
In his words; “In the task of nation building, political leaders sometimes have to rise above the fray and take decisions in the national interest, even when he does not seem to benefit from it. Some of us did this before. In 2000, when some of our colleagues wanted to change our two-year tenure to four years, I led the opposition to this, even though I would have been a beneficiary of that exercise as a National Executive Committee (NEC) member”
The Peoples’s Trust’s presidential candidate called on the electorate and the entire citizens of Nigeria not to be discouraged from participating in the next polls as a result of “the shenanigans of APC and PDP.”
Olawepo-Hashim regretted that since what he called the “garrison” election in Osun state and the unfortunate decline of assent to the Electoral Act and stressed that the APC has been trying to spread fear in the minds of would-be voters that their votes would not count.
He further said; People’s Trust is a product of the struggle for democracy. We know what to do in the event of anyone trying to hold on to power, irrespective of the people’s desire. We are a party for the people and we shall stand by them all the time.
“Next year is Nigeria’s hour of glory, and we will not allow anyone to prevent the glory of God from shinning on the nation. We have come a long way as a nation and Nigeria is no longer an entity that can be toyed with, especially with the level of sacrifices our people have made.”
