Stop Pitching Military Against Nigerians: PDP Tells Buratai  

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday cautioned the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, over the deployment of soldiers for elections, stressing that the development is already triggering an uncontrolled crime against humanity in the nation.

This Party said that the usurpation of the responsibility of the police and involvement of soldiers in the February 23 Presidential and National Assembly elections, led to the gruesome killing of over 30 innocent Nigerians in the Niger Delta as well as arbitrary arrest and detention of opposition figures, resulting in escalated insecurity in the region.

A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, noted that the deployment of soldiers for the 2019 general elections, despite the extant ruling of the Supreme Court against such, is part of the grand plot by the All Progressives Congress (APC), to use the military to suppress opposition, instill fear in the citizenry and forcefully rig the elections.

The PDP further said; “General Buratai’s outburst on Wednesday, that the Army will be ‘tough’ in its unconstitutional involvement in the conduct of elections, particularly in the Niger Delta, the South East and the North Central, appears to be a license to trigger-happy security agents to re-enact or even scale up their February 23 aggression against PDP figures in the March 9, Governorship and State Assembly elections.

“The PDP invites Nigerians to note that following General Buratai’s statement on Wednesday, soldiers last night commenced a targeted manhandling and mass arrest of PDP leaders in Delta, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and Bayelsa states. 

“In Rivers state, PDP leaders are being tracked down, arrested and taken to unknown destinations. The State Commissioner of Education, Dr. Tam Gogo Jaja, who was picked up by soldiers attached to the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organization and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is still being held in an unknown facility.

“Furthermore, compromised security agents have been hounding, arresting and detaining PDP figures in the North Central states of Kogi, Benue, Kwara and Plateau states ahead of the March 9 elections.”

The PDP lamented what it described as the pitching of the military against Nigerians by the APC, not minding the collateral damage that usually occurs whenever soldiers clash with civilians.

According to the PDP; “This is particularly given the fact that Nigerians in all PDP strongholds, spread across our country, are resolute in their resistance of any force that seeks to subvert their will at the March 9 elections.

“Nigerians should call on General Buratai to redirect his officers and men from participating in the March 9 election so as to avert any breakdown of law and order in any part of our country before, during and after the March 9 elections.”