Your Threats Won’t Gag Nigerians, PDP Tells Buhari

• Asks President to write military over his certificate

• Raises the alarm over tension, extra-judicial killings

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that no amount of threat and intimidation by agents of the Presidency would stop Nigerians from discussing the failures of President Muhammadu Buhari and ultimately vote him out in 2019.

The main opposition party has also challenged President Buhari, to end the confrontations by his Presidency and show integrity by writing the military authorities to make public his certificate, if he has nothing to hide.

The party has also expressed serious concern over the mounting tension, violence and rising cases of extra-judicial killings in the country.

PDP said that the desperation by the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC), to gag Nigerians as well as to divert attention from their failures by making spurious allegations and distorting facts could no longer help as Nigerians have already moved on in their determination to do away with them in 2019.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement yesterday said that the prevailing hunger, corruption, escalated violence, government insensitivity and governance by proxy, which are the hallmarks of this administration constitute the referendum by Nigerians to vote out Buhari and replace him with its candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

He said: “Nigerians are already aware of how the Buhari Presidency wrecked our once robust economy, shattered our national cohesion, subjected our citizens to the worst economic hardship and turned our nation to a large funeral palour.”

“Nigerians are already aware of how the Buhari administration has been attacking our institutions of democracy, including the National Assembly and the Judiciary and how judicial officers and legislators have been serially attacked under this administration.

“They know that this administration does not possess a modicum of respect for rule of law and how it has been putting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under pressure to do its biddings.

“Is it not shameful that the Buhari Presidency is accusing the PDP of attacking INEC commissioners just because our party exposed the secret meeting between it and INEC Chairman at the Presidential villa?

“The Buhari Presidency is also at pains over our party’s unrelenting demand that President Buhari’s relation, who was recently redeployed from Operations/ICT to Welfare Department, be completely removed from the commission; a position that has been approved by majority of Nigerians across board.”

In another development, the main opposition party has challenged President Buhari, to end the confrontations by his Presidency and show integrity by writing the military authorities to make public the said certificate, if he has nothing to hide.

The party said that the fretting and jittering in the Presidency whenever the issue of President Buhari’s academic certificate is mentioned confirms assertions by Nigerians that the President is morally burdened and ostensibly has something to hide.

The party while responding to a statement credited to the Presidency alleging that those raising the certificate issue are sowing seeds of discord, insisted that Buhari’s handlers should do the needful by placing the certificate in public domain instead of confronting and threatening Nigerians for demanding that President shows his certificate.

Ologbondiyan, in a statement yesterday in Abuja said that the Presidency should know that their threats and confrontation cannot take away the fact that their principal’s certificate issue requires a personal responsibility, adding that the President cannot wish away this responsibility as he had always done on official matters.

According to him, “If President has nothing to hide; he should end the confrontations by his Presidency and show integrity by writing the military authorities to make public the said certificate.

Meanwhile, the PDP has expressed serious concern over what it described as mounting tension, violence and rising cases of extra-judicial killings in the country.

In a separate statement, Olo-gbondiyan said the opposition party thoroughly rejects the resort to maximum unleashing of state apparatus of power against citizens at the slightest provocation.

This, he said had resulted in bloodletting and extra-judicial killings of compatriots, preponderance of which are never investigated despite the usual lip service of bringing perpetrators to book.

The opposition party noted that the frightening situation in the country was precipitated by series of divisive and undemocratic actions and statements of the Buhari administration coupled with its official high-handedness, blatant refusal to obey court orders and open disregard to constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens.

The PDP said that the life of every Nigerian is sacred and deserves respect as provided for in the 1999 Constitution (as emended).