The PDP on Wednesday said claims by the APC that it plans to arrest some members of the opposition is evil.<\/p>\n
It also described as ludicrous,\u00a0 claims by Opposition spokesman,\u00a0 Lai Mohammed that the PDP plans to bug the phones of INEC officials,\u00a0 and plant illegal substance in the bags of some members of the opposition.<\/p>\n
Presidential campaign spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode,\u00a0 in a statement in Abuja said “We have no plans to plant any illegal substance in the bags of any of the leaders of the APC whenever they travel.\u00a0 We are not trying to compromise the telephone numbers of any of the INEC officials.\u00a0 President Jonathan is not planning to arrest opposition leaders before the elections.”<\/p>\n
Full text<\/p>\n
This morning, through its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the APC has made a series of absurd and clearly ludicrous claims and allegations.\u00a0 It is clear that these claims and allegations are nothing but the paranoid ranting of a paranoid little man that is working for a paranoid party.\u00a0 Rather than trying to prepare his masters\u2019 minds for the defeat that is coming their way, Lai Mohammed has come again with his verbal diarrhea.
\nThe truth is that we are not strategizing to shift the election dates.\u00a0 We are not trying to frame up Jega.\u00a0 We have no plans to plant any illegal substance in the bags of any of the leaders of the APC whenever they travel.\u00a0 We are not trying to compromise the telephone numbers of any of the INEC officials.\u00a0 President Jonathan is not planning to arrest opposition leaders before the elections.\u00a0 The Presidency has not retained the services of any foreigner to corrupt or compromise INEC computers on Election Day and we are not planning to do any of the other reprehensible things that they have alleged.\u00a0 The truth is that if they were in our position, these are the sort of sordid things that they would do.\u00a0 Such dirty things and filthy tactics are a way of life and an art with them.\u00a0 But for us, such things are alien, perverse and unacceptable.
\nThe PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation is not surprised that the APC is resorting to peddling falsehood in order to gain public sympathy.\u00a0 For quite some time now, the party has been displaying its expertise in the cheap propaganda for which it is well-known.\u00a0 We take exception to their fiction and false claims and we will not take this matter lightly.
\nThese spurious allegations follow a well-documented pattern of lies that only recently saw them falsely claiming that an interview conducted by one of its sympathizers at the Abuja Transcorp Hilton Hotel was conducted by a so-called independent journalist in the UK. The whole world now knows that, on that occasion, as on many other occasions, the APC told a barefaced lie.
\nThis new smear campaign against the PDP-led Federal Government is clearly propelled by the fact that the APC knows fullly that it has gone as far as it can go with its propaganda and deceit and that it will be thoroughly beaten by the PDP at the polls in the upcoming elections.
\nThe APC and its leaders are simply unraveling and falling apart at the seams. They are the ones who had perfected a plan to rig the forthcoming elections through the lopsided distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).\u00a0 They were very comfortable with the fact that 34 percent of registered voters had not collected their PVCs as at February 14 just before the presidential election was postponed.
\nThe APC and its leaders said that they were ready for that election when it was obvious that the PVC collection rate in the north, comprising some of the traditional strongholds of their presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, was higher than the collection rate in the south, the traditional support base of our candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.
\nWe are happy that many eligible voters are now going out to collect their PVCs.\u00a0 We know that the APC and its leaders are not happy about this development because they had wanted to railroad themselves on the nation through a compromised and rigged election.\u00a0 How can they be happy when the advantage they obviously enjoyed before the postponement of the February 14 presidential election has now been removed?
\nOur position on the card reader remains that the machine has not been tested in any election and there are bases for genuine concern over the use of the machine, for the first time, in a crucial election of this magnitude.\u00a0 We are aware of the plot by the APC, working in cahoots with some strategically placed and retrogressive elements, to use the card readers to frustrate accreditation in some parts of the country while not enforcing strict use of the machines in some other parts.\u00a0 The truth is that if they go ahead with that wicked plot, the APC and its collaborators will only be preparing the ground for mass resistance. They can be rest assured that we will not sit by idly and allow such a thing to unfold.
\nThe APC and its leaders are merchants of violence.\u00a0 They are creating laughable scenarios and possibilities that will feed into their agenda to cause chaos and violence before, during and after the forthcoming elections.\u00a0 This is why we insist on the deployment of soldiers in the forthcoming elections as it was done in the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Osun where APC won, in Ondo where Labour Party won, in Anambra where APGA won, and in Ekiti where the PDP won.
\nOne of the APC governors in the person of Adams Oshiomhole had this to say during the 2012 governorship election in Edo State and I quote: \u201cThe army is here to deal with trouble-makers.\u00a0 The only people who need to be worried are those who intend to cause trouble\u2026 As the Governor of Edo State, I believe we need the army to complement the efforts of the Police.\u00a0 I remember that under our \u201cOperation Thunder Storm\u201d, the army has since been involved in complementing the efforts of the Police to provide internal security.\u00a0 So don\u2019t allow anybody to fool you that army is going to harass you, to prevent you from voting.\u00a0 No! The army is here to assist so that your vote will count.\u201d End quote.\u00a0 So why is the APC now paranoid about the deployment of soldiers?\u00a0 They are certainly up to something sinister.
\nThe PDP has always insisted that the INEC has the constitutional duty to conduct free and fair elections and hence has never interfered with the Commission\u2019s preparations.\u00a0 Specifically, President Goodluck Jonathan has always said he and his government have absolutely no intention of interfering with INEC\u2019s activities, even though the INEC chairman and commissioners are his appointees.
\nWe can categorically state that the PDP, having earned pass marks for overseeing the conduct of free and fair elections in the past had no plans to compromise the coming elections, given our high-level of preparedness for the exercise.
\nAs at today, President Goodluck Jonathan has led the campaign of PDP to all the 36 states of the Federation, specifically to most places which the APC and other parties had never gone to.\u00a0 We are, by this, confident of winning the forthcoming elections by the grace of the Almighty God and the support of a vast majority of Nigerians.\u00a0 We will win resoundingly while the APC will suffer a crushing and irreversible defeat.
\nI thank you for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The PDP on Wednesday said claims by the APC that it plans to arrest some members of the opposition is evil. It also described as ludicrous,\u00a0 claims by Opposition spokesman,\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n