In response to repeated attacks on INEC offices and PDP allegations that some ruling party officials were determined to sabotage the 2023 general election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has requested that security agencies summon leaders of the opposition Peoples Progressive Congress (APC) for questioning.
It takes a thief to catch a thief, asserts the APC, hence PDP must provide evidence to support its assertions.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Festus Keyamo SAN, the minister of state for labor and employment and chief spokesperson for the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council PCC, made the accusation.
Keyamo’s response came in response to a press conference given by the PDP leadership, which accused members of the opposition party of inciting violence ahead of the election.
“This Press Statement, coming just barely 48 hours after one of its former officials was convicted by a court of law over illegal acts committed during an election over which the PDP government presided is just a pointer to the lowest level of moral debauchery to which the PDP has sunk. It operates without an iota of shame or respect for the Nigerian people.
“Instead of continuous apologies for those grievous acts of election rigging, money laundering, and other electoral malpractices, it continues to pontificate,” said Keyamo.
According to its most recent press release, which claimed to have “reliable evidence” regarding specific individuals plotting to scuttle the 2023 elections, including acts of arson already committed against INEC buildings, he said that, “we, therefore, call on the law-enforcement agencies to, as a matter of urgency, invite the PDP leaders for immediate questioning”.
He asserts that the PDP is required to disclose information on the location, date, and attendees of any such meeting. He added that the PDP must also supply the following details. “the identities of those who committed these acts of arson on the facilities of INEC, and the information must also include the identity of those who sponsored these individuals (if any)”.
According to him, the PDP has to understand that campaigning for elections is a very serious undertaking and is not the time to make irrational claims about the Nigerian people.
“The Nigerian people have since grown weary of the antics of the PDP.
“The PDP should not joke or play politics with grave security matters. Having ‘credible information’ as to plots and individuals relating to the attack on INEC offices currently, further plots to disrupt elections is, indeed, a matter of national security.
“This is therefore a notice to our last enforcement agencies to immediately invite the PDP leaders for questioning. After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief”.
“We suspect that the latest alarm by the PDP is one of a long list of diversionary measures adopted by the party to deflect attention from its crumbling edifice. Just yesterday, the major leaders of the PDP in Katsina State led by a former Katsina State Governor, Mr. Ibrahim Shehu Shema, and 10 out of the 14-member working committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) boycotted the party’s rally in the State and today they issue this statement to deflect attention from that disaster.
“We also state that this gimmick is nothing but crying wolf when there is none. We have said in an earlier statement on this issue some weeks ago that this is the same unnecessary scare-mongering tactics and crass vituperations they employed and engaged in before the 2019 election which led to their crushing defeat.
“We also said before and we repeat it here that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a thoroughbred democrat and one of the major architects of the democracy PDP and Nigerians enjoy today, so he should be the very last of the Presidential candidates to be accused of undemocratic conduct or underhand dealings in the electoral process.
