Poll postponement hatched inside Presidency, PDP claims

The decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to postpone the presidential and National Assembly polls by a week was hatched inside the Presidency, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has claimed.

Mr Kola Ologbondiyan the National Publicity Secretary of the party, made the claim while reacting to the postponement of the election during an ongoing press briefing in Abuja, the Federal capital.

According to Ologbondiyan, the idea to shift the polls came from the Presidency, but warned that President Muhammadu Buhari’s defeat was merely a few days away.

The PDP also alleged that the Presidency was allegedly still planning to put some obstacles in the way of INEC to ensure that the election will be observed beyond one day.

The allegation by the PDP comes hours after the party rejected the postponement of the polls by INEC.

Read also: Election postponement a travesty, familiar nightmare, Sowore fumes

According to a statement by the National Chairman of the party, Prince Secondus, signed by his media officer Ike Abonyi, the decision clearly exposed INEC as a failure and called on its chairman to resign immediately.

The PDP leader warned that the party will not accept “anything short of a well organised electoral process devoid of manipulation, harassment and intimidation of voters and the opposition particularly members of the PDP.”

Secondus added, “Having failed in all their nefarious options to enable them cling on to power, the APC and the INEC came up with the idea of shifting election, an action that is dangerous to our democracy and is therefore unacceptable.”

Secondus however noted that the APC in connivance with the INEC “have been trying all options including but not limited to burning down INEC offices in some states and destroying of electoral materials to create artificial problems upon which to stand for their dubious act.”

“For the avoidance of doubt the PDP sees this action as wicked and we are also aware of other dubious designs like the deployment of hooded security operatives who would be ruthless on the people ostensibly to scare them away.”

He said that by this action, the President had allegedly further demonstrated his “insensitivity costing the huge cost after Nigerians including those who came home from abroad have all mobilised to their various constituencies.”

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