PDP Rejects Nationwide Operation Python Dance

•  Says it’s plot to harass voters

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected a nationwide military ‘Operation Python Dance, claiming that it was a ploy by President Muhammadu Buhari to use it to intimidate voters and rig the 2019 Presidential election, having realised he could not win in a free and fair poll.

The Director of Media and Publicity, PDP Campaign Organisation, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan faulted the operation in a statement yesterday, calming that investigation by the party showed that the plot “is to use the military operation as a subterfuge to unleash heavy security presence to intimidate, harass and instill fear in voters in PDP strongholds across the country and pave the way for the allocation of fictitious votes to the APC.

Toward this end, the main opposition party rejected deliberate attempt by the Buhari Presidency “to set the military on collision course with Nigerians, bearing in mind the collateral damage that usually occurs whenever the civilian population clashes with military.”

Ologbondiyan noted that the country “is a democratic state and obviously not in a state of emergency that requires the militarization of the electoral process. This plot is in consonance with the desperation of the Buhari Presidency to foist a siege mentality on the nation ahead of the 2019 general elections, harass voters and create a sense of escalated insecurity to stalemate the electoral process, once it becomes clearer that the APC was losing.

“Further, investigation reveals that agents of the Buhari Presidency are working in cahoot with some compromised top officials of the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to use soldiers to provide cover for diversion of electoral materials, as well as aid APC agents in their plan to unleash violence and disrupt the electoral process in areas where the PDP is winning.

“In spanning the military operation to February 28, 2019, the Buhari Presidency betrayed its anticipation of public rejection or violence, which can only come when a result that does not reflect the actual wish of the people is announced.”

He said the only threat to peaceful election today “is the Buhari Presidency, which has been overheating the polity with its official high handedness, clamp down on opposition and desperation to rig the polls.

He noted that the authorities believe that military steps are genuinely required to ensure peaceful poll in any part of the country, they should recourse to the constitutional approval of the National Assembly and not making impositions as if the nation is under a military regime.

According to him, all that Nigerians desire at this point is to go to the polls and peacefully elect a new President to reposition our nation and not another round of electoral crisis.