Amina Zakari: PDP tells UN, NPC, others to call President Buhari to order - AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY NEWS

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Monday, January 7, 2019

Amina Zakari: PDP tells UN, NPC, others to call President Buhari to order

Kola Ologbondiyan
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) on Sunday called on the National Peace Committee (NPC), the United Nations and all world leaders to save the nation from imminent collapse by immediately call on President Muhammadu Buhari to order, if Nigeria must have peaceful, free, fair and credible general elections in February.

The campaign organisation, which stated that President Buhari will not be the first President to be defeated in an election, added that it has put the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) on notice over the use of Police to clamp down on opposition figures.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja at a press conference, PPCO Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that there will not be free and fair election with Amina Zakari in Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“President Buhari’s insistence on having his relation in charge of collation of Presidential election results is completely provocative, a direct affront to the sensibilities of Nigerians and express invitation to crisis of epic proportion, which is capable of truncating the entire electoral process and derailing our hard-earned democracy.

“We want the National Peace Committee and the entire world to know that as long as Amina Zakari is in INEC, a peaceful election is not guaranteed because she has the mandate to abuse the process and this will not be accepted by Nigerians,” he said.

Insisting that President Buhari has been overheating the polity, Ologbondiyan pointed out that the President is trying to derail the electoral process having realised that he cannot win the forthcoming election.

“We want the whole world to know that Nigeria is in a perilous time. President Muhammadu Buhari’s desperation for self-succession has become the major threat to our national unity, stability and peaceful electoral process.

“Having realized that Nigerians are rallying behind our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as their next President, the Buhari Presidency is now seeking ways to enmesh the electoral process in crisis.

“The Buhari Presidency has been overheating the polity with its unending manipulations of INEC, muzzling of free speech and escalated clampdown on opposition and Civil Society Organizations and we insist that such must stop if we must have a peaceful election.

“The PPCO insists that there is no way peace can be guaranteed without a free and fair election. Already, Nigerians across the board are livid with anger over the foisting of Mrs. Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s relation, to head the collation of Presidential election results,” he said.

The party spokesman explained that majority of Nigerians and over 90 percent of the political parties in the election, as well as major political and socio-cultural groups across the country have rejected Mrs. Amina Zakari and also called for her resignation from INEC, adding that “yet President Buhari is insisting on her stay in the commission.

“Our party is aware of plots by the Buhari Presidency to use Amina Zakari, who has been mentioned as part of those involved in the rigging of 2018 governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states, to plunge the 2019 general elections into controversies, truncate the flow of results and even render elections in some critical states inconclusive, to pave way for allocation of fictitious votes to President Buhari and the APC.”

The PPCO Director of Media and Publicity called on the National Peace Committee to immediately speak out on the impropriety of having Amina Zakari in INEC as well as insist on her removal so that “we can have a credible and peaceful Presidential election.”

Ologbondiyan further noted that peaceful election cannot be guaranteed as long as the Buhari Presidency continues to besiege, harass, intimidate, unleash violence and provocative acts of totalitarianism against opposition figures and persons perceived to be against President Buhari’s self-succession bid.

Ologbondiyan, particularly, mentioned the cases of Senator Dino Melaye and Deji Adeyanju who are allegedly being hounded for their outspokenness against the alleged misrule of the Buhari Presidency.

Pointing out that the aim of the government is to to return the nation to the nightmares of 1984, Ologbondiyan said that it is preposterous for anybody, no matter how highly placed, to think that PDP and its Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar can be subdued out of the political space in the country.

“Our party is courageously going into the general elections with the support of overwhelming majority of Nigerians and they are not ready to accept any result that does not reflect their already expressed wishes and aspirations,” Ologbondiyan said.

Reacting to the alleged comment of Minister of Transportation and Director General of All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council, Rotimi Amaechi on Buhari’s government, Ologbondiyan said what he said was just a demonstration about the lies, deception, contraverses and beguilement that APC deployed in winning the 2015 election.

He said: Talking of the audio tape making the round in social media concerning the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi, I think has a huge responsibility to defend himself, but if his principal, President Buhari feels that the tape is normal, it is not our business in PDP.

“What is out in the public domain, is just a demonstration to Nigerians about the lies, deception, contraverses, beguilement that APC deployed in winning the 2015 election. They have no plans, no agenda in whatever form as far as governance is concern for Nigerians. And if one of their own inner cancus has come out to say that this is what we say, it is not within the purview of PDP to rise in defence of Amaechi.”

Meanwhile, Nigerian Women and Youth Groups, under Accord Women & Youth Initiative, has condemned and rejected the appointment of Amina Zakari as Chairman of the National Collation Centre Committee of INEC.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, the Executive Director of the groups, Esther Opaluwah, recalled that INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has consistently maintained that he is committed to conducting a credible, free and fair election, “hence we expect nothing less than transparency and neutrality from INEC.

“Mrs Amina Zakari who is not only a blood relative of the incumbent, President Mohammadu Buhari, but also married to the APC senatorial candidate of Bauchi South. Therefore, by consaiguinity and affinity, her hands are tied.

“Mrs Amina Zakari has repeatedly failed the neutrality and impartial test especially on her antecedents in the immediate past elections in the South West where she was in charge of Electoral Operations and Logistics.


“We the Nigerian women and youths are not satisfied with her conduct as INEC Commissioner and this is rubbing off negatively on the integrity of the electoral processes.

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