Tribunals: PDP lying to cover rigging, says APC

The All Progressives Congress has accused the Peoples Democratic Party of engaging in “brazen lies” by alleging interference by the security agencies in cases before election petition tribunals.

It says the “lies” are to cover the rigging perpetrated by the former ruling party during the last general elections.

APC described the allegation as “a futile attempt by the PDP to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians”.

In a statement in Lagos on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said not only did the PDP “lied shamelessly” in making the allegation, but also “trying to muddle the waters on the true situation concerning the case before the Rivers State Election Petitions

Tribunal – which precipitated the PDP’s frivolous accusation in the first instance.”

APC explained that the invitation of some officials from the Rivers State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission was prompted by a petition to the Inspector General of Police and the Director-General, DSS, by the APC that the officials were colluding with the PDP to deny the APC access to key documents used for the last Governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state.

Also contained in the petition, APC said, was the allegation that some directors at the INEC head office in Abuja had been trying to deny the APC access to some documents used for the said elections but domiciled at the Commission’s head office.

This, the party added, was despite that the INEC Chairman had promptly attended to the issue and directed the said
officials to furnish the needed documents.

APC stated that the IG had directed, upon the receipt of the APC petition, that the matter be investigated and that
the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers State should be invited.

READ: Fayose Reacts to Chief Defence Staff appointment

Those who were named in the APC petition to the security agencies, the statement said, included the Rivers REC, Mrs Gesila Khan; the Administrative Secretary, Mr. Obijuru Royson; Head of Operations Department, Bocco Ekong; and Legal Officer, Fumi Gaffar.

The party said, ”Therefore, the PDP’s wolf crying over a conspiracy it orchestrated with the Rivers INEC to deny the APC access to documents used for the said elections amounts to barefaced lies and a clear attempt at distorting facts.

”These persistent refusal to release the documents is happening despite a valid order from the tribunal and in a clear violation of Section 77 (1) and (2) and other provisions of the Electoral Act.

”In addition, there is also a deliberate effort by the conspirators (Rivers INEC and the PDP) to destroy the documents so as not to allow the APC to have access to them, and then report their loss to the police. One of such cases was filed on June 29 at the Akinima Police Station in the Ahoada West Local Government Area.”

APC believed it had become clear that the PDP, “knowing full well that it had something to hide in the Rivers election, is doing everything possible to sabotage the search for the truth, while at the same time engaging in impudent finger pointing as a strategy to deceive the unsuspecting public”.

READ: 5000 naked people to protest in Nairobi ahead of President Obama visit