Fresh poll delay should attract global sanctions –APC

National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Lai Mohammed

The All Progressives Congress has again raised the alarm over what it calls the relentless scheming by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration and the Peoples Democratic Party to push for another postponement of the 2015 general elections.

This, the APC alleged, was aimed at allowing the PDP to perfect its rigging plan.

The opposition party urged the international community not to hesitate to impose sanctions on whoever scuttles the general elections scheduled to begin on March 28.

In a statement issued in Dubai on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said the President Jonathan-led PDP administration’s multi-pronged efforts to prevent the elections from holding as rescheduled include; the use of some 23 portfolio political parties to seek a further shift in the election dates and the destabilisation of INEC’s election plan through the orchestrated removal of its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega.

According to the APC, the same 23 satellite parties of the PDP that were used to push for the six-week postponement of the elections have again started testing the waters by pushing for a further shift in the elections in the six-states of the North-East, ostensibly to allow the conclusion of the counter-insurgency battle and also to allow those displaced to return home.

“The plan is to use the same bogey of insecurity in the North-East to push for another postponement in the elections. The signs are ominous indeed.

“The body language of the President and his party does not support the holding of elections. They are mortally afraid of losing because the use of PVCs and card readers have thwarted their rigging plans,’’ APC said.

The APC also said while the 23 parties were pushing for the elections to be further postponed, the Jonathan administration and the PDP were simultaneously forging ahead with their plan to remove Jega and replace him with a malleable acting chairman who, they believed, would do their bidding.

The statement further said, “Once they remove Jega, his replacement will either seek more time to organise the polls or simply jettison the plan to use card readers, thereby opening the door for those who have been buying up PVCs to use them.

“Is it not interesting that the same administration that has been flaunting free and fair elections as a key achievement has now gone for the jugular of the same man who organised those polls?

“Is the man they don’t want not the same person who organised the 2011 polls which the administration has described as free, fair and credible? What has now gone wrong between them and their poster boy for successful elections?” it queried.

The opposition party warned of dire consequences if the polls were further shifted. It hinged its fears on the obvious constitutional crisis that was capable of endangering the country’s democracy and destabilising the country in its entirety.

The party called on Nigerians, especially the civil society, to be very vigilant in the days ahead, “as the cloud of uncertainty becomes thicker and the vultures begin to circle.”

It also called on the international community to consider imposing stiff sanctions on key members of the Jonathan administration if they forced another postponement or scuttle the polls.