The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked security agencies to bring Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in for questioning in response to repeated attacks on INEC offices and claims by the PDP that some ruling party officials were determined to stop the 2023 general election.
The APC says that the PDP needs to prove what it says because it takes a thief to catch a thief.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Festus Keyamo SAN, who is Minister of State for Labor and Employment and Chief Spokesperson for the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council PCC, said that this was their job.
Keyamo was responding to a press conference held by the PDP leadership, in which members of the ruling party were accused of encouraging violence before the election.
“We are worried about the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) jumbled and confusing Press Statement, which was released today. In it, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has problems with ethics, warns again about plans to start violence and stop the 2023 elections. It says it has “credible information” about who is causing violence in some parts of the country.
“This Press Statement comes just 48 hours after one of its former officials was found guilty of breaking the law during an election that the PDP government was in charge of. It shows how low the PDP has fallen in terms of morality. It runs its business with no shame or regard for the Nigerian people.
“Instead of constantly apologizing for those terrible things like rigging elections, laundering money, and other election crimes, it keeps preaching,” said Keyamo.
He said that based on its latest Press Statement, which said that it had “credible information” that some people were trying to stop the 2023 elections, including by setting fire to INEC buildings, “we call on the law enforcement agencies to immediately invite the PDP leaders for questioning.”
He said that the PDP must tell where, when, and who was at this meeting.
Among the other things he said the PDP must give, he said, are “the names of those who set fire to INEC buildings and, if there were any sponsors, the names of those who paid for these people.”
He said that the PDP should realize that campaigning for an election is a very serious business and not the time to make stupid and childish claims just to have something to say to the people of Nigeria.
“By now, the Nigerian people are tired of the PDP’s tricks.
“We think that the PDP’s latest alarm is just one of a long list of things it has done to draw attention away from its crumbling building. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in Katsina State, led by Mr. Ibrahim Shehu Shema, a former governor of the state, and 10 of the 14-member working committee, skipped the party’s rally in the state yesterday. Today, they released this statement to draw attention away from that disaster.
“We also say that this trick is just shouting “wolf!” when there is no wolf. In a statement we made about this issue a few weeks ago, we said that this is the same kind of needless scaremongering and cheap insults they used before the 2019 election, which led to their huge loss.
“We’ve also said before, and we’ll say it again here, that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a true democrat and one of the main people who built the democracy that PDP and Nigerians enjoy today. He should be the last of the Presidential candidates to be accused of acting in a way that isn’t democratic or sneaking around in the election process.
“The PDP shouldn’t joke around or play politics with security issues that are very serious. Having “credible information” about plots and people involved in the attack on INEC offices and other plans to interfere with elections is important for national security.
“This is a notice to our last law enforcement agencies that the PDP leaders need to be brought in right away for questioning. It takes a thief to catch a thief, after all.
