GUBER POLLS: PDP vows to retrieve mandates from ‘usurpers and manipulators’

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) insisted on Tuesday that the results of last Saturday governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States cannot stand given the massive fraud and violence that marred the exercise.

The party vowed that the “mandates clearly given” to its candidates, Musa Wada (Kogi) and Douye Diri (Bayelsa) would be retrieved from “usurpers and manipulators.”

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the nation is still in shock over “the brazen show of violence, where security forces coordinated the invasion of polling units, shooting and killing of voters and carting away of ballot boxes to government facilities where results were altered and fictitious figures given to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates as winners of the elections.”

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The statement said: “Nigerians watched with horror as APC thugs and security forces traumatized and held voters hostage, injured and maimed many more in violent attacks that involved the deployment of police helicopters.

“Our party has been made aware of the roles played by the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu as well as the Inspector- General of Police, Mohammed Adamu in the elections. While we urge these officials to do some introspection on the anguish they have caused the people since the rigging of the elections, the PDP NWC assures that it will never hesitate to expose such ignoble roles at the appropriate time.

“The irreversible fact remains that though evil may appear to thrive for a while, truth and justice will always prevail at the end. The APC and its candidates must bear in mind that what they could not get through the ballot box, they cannot get by violence, manipulation, and killing.

“The PDP is therefore undeterred in the determination to use all legitimate means available and allowed within our democratic practice to confront the usurpers and retrieved our mandates in Kogi and Bayelsa states.”

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