TRACKING>>President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC, through his Campaign Council has called for the immediate arrest of a Peoples Democratic Party’s chieftain, Alhaji Buba Galadima, over alleged plan to release fake presidential results, giving victory to PDP’s Atiku Abubakar.
Buhari’s team are insisting that Atiku has not won the election.
The Spokesperson for the council, Festus Keyamo, (SAN), in a statement on Sunday, claimed that the PDP had become devastated by the authentic results filtering out of polling units nationwide.
He said, “Our usual sources within the camp of the PDP have informed us that an emergency meeting of the main opposition party has been summoned for today somewhere in Abuja.
“Top on the agenda of the PDP is to activate the last strand of their Dubai strategies that have since collapsed like a pack of cards: they plan to release fake results of the presidential election later today (Sunday) or early Monday morning that they claim to have compiled themselves.
‘Our information is that they aim to create confusion that will lead to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar claiming victory in a day or two from today ahead of the official announcement of the results by INEC. Then, what would follow will be some carefully choreographed protests by pockets of hoodlums in some parts of the country. The ultimate aim is to curry the sympathy of our foreign friends and push us to the Venezuela situation.”
The statement added that some PDP social media agents were already posting on the Internet some states allegedly ‘won’ by the PDP.
Keyamo said, “In fact, Alhaji Buba Galadima, an official spokesperson for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has made a short video announcing PDP as the ‘winner’ of the presidential election. As an official spokesperson, he is clearly acting on behalf of Atiku and on his instruction. We, therefore call for the immediate arrest, interrogation and prosecution of Galadima in this regard. The world is watching and waiting on Atiku Abubakar to say something on the video by Galadima.”
Also, the APC accused the PDP of making a provocative statement by calling on INEC to arbitrarily announce its candidate, winner of the presidential election.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a statement on Sunday said the call by the PDP was an unwarranted strike against democracy and the people of Nigeria.
Issa-Onilu stated, “This call is shameful and alarming. Unwilling to wait for INEC, the constituted authority to complete its task, the PDP seeks a short cut by false and premature claims of victory. This cannot stand.
“Our nation is trying to perfect its democracy, not turn it into a mockery. Sadly, this objective is lost to the PDP. The PDP’s guiding principle is distilled to the following; because they want something, then they should get it.
“But this is not the way of democracy. Democracy means the people choose for themselves not that the PDP chooses for them.’’
Reacting, the PDP said that the APC is afraid of its own tactics which was deployed in 2015, where the APC posted election results on its website even while the then INEC Prof Jega was still collating results from across the state. The leading opposition party however insisted that it has won.
