Election Shift: APC Challenges Jonathan

The opposition All Progressives Congress presidential campaign organisation has challenged President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to explain their alleged involvement in the recent postponement of the 2015 general elections.

The organisation, in a statement by its director of media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja, yesterday, February 10, condemned what it called embedded vested interests and sinister motives behind the polls’ postponement.

According to the Nigerian Guardian, the APC decried the unholy alliance between Jonathan’s government, the PDP and the military for the purposes of subverting the franchise of the people in the rescheduled presidential and other elections on March 28 and April 11 respectively.

The opposition said: “If the witch cried in the night and the baby died in the morning, it would not be a mere coincidence. Hence, the body of civilised and democratic people around the world believe that the security excuse used by this government to prolong the polls is untrue and pretentious.

“What type of democracy allows security chiefs to determine when elections would hold or not? Now, the National Security Adviser (NSA) has become the megaphone for this government. He went to Chatham House in the UK to call for election postponement which he has now obtained. Next, he claims he would crush Boko Haram within six weeks. What if he can’t, will there be a further excuse to extend the elections and create constitutional impasse? Nigerians are no fools.
 

“We are inundated with information as to how this government wants to tamper with due process by discrediting INEC and even sack its chairman, raise false alarms, rig the election with military connivance and eventually scuttle democracy, replacing it with an interim government. For all we know and can see, the contraption of an interim government has no place in the constitution as former President Obasanjo said on BBC Monday night.”
The organization called on Jonathan and the PDP to come clean on allegations that they are planning to scuttle Nigeria’s democracy.

“President Jonathan must come clean on these allegations. He is the Commander-in-Chief, and not the NSA. Hence he must, as a matter of urgency, speak to the nation and the world on these salient allegations. A refusal would make him the historic President who doesn’t give a damn while on national assignment,” the opposition party said.

The elections’ shift caused many negative reactions. Senator Babafemi Ojudu had alleged that President Jonathan planned to have his tenure extended for a 2-year term with the elections’ postponement.

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