The party also reacted to statements
made on Wednesday by the presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and his running-mate, Peter Obi at a
Town Hall meeting in Abuja, describing it as mere falsehood and a show
of unrepentant attitude over past misdeeds.
Addressing a press conference at the
National headquarters of the APC, the National Publicity Secretary,
Mallam Lanre Isa-Onilu, said contrary to insinuations by the PDP that
INEC is biased in favour of the APC, the commission has done more harm
to the interest of the ruling party than that of the opposition.
Onilu who was reacting to INEC’s
insistence on non-inclusion of APC’s candidates for the election in
Zamfara State over failure to conduct proper party primaries, said the
commission did not take the same stand on the PDP’s candidates in Kano
State.
“It also shows for people who are
discerning to ask that question, this is supposed to be the APC that
INEC is or ought to be working for? And this is what we are going
through in the hands of INEC that PDP has repeatedly claimed is put in
place to rig elections for APC.
“But let me add that in Kano State, PDP
did not do primaries. PDP did not take any of these options and yet
today, INEC is not saying anything regarding PDP and all the candidates
submitted for PDP in Kano were accepted,” he said.
He said that INEC has relied on the fact
that courts of equal jurisdiction have given conflicting judgments and
still insisted on holding to its position regarding non-inclusion of
APC’s candidates in the elections.
“We can understand that. What it thus
means is that it is not over and then we will continue to take steps. We
are very certain, we did the right thing. The primaries held; INEC was
not satisfied with that but it is our right to field candidates and we
would follow up all the legal means to ensure that our candidates stand
for elections in this 2019 general elections in Zamfara. Same situation
for Rivers,” he said.
When asked to compare Atiku’s outing at
the Town Hall session as against President Buhari’s performance, Onilu
said that the president came across as one with a clean mind and
determination to fix Nigeria, while Atiku has only been able to restate
his “penchant for unquenchable interest for manipulating the system for
personal gains and one who is bold to ask Nigerians to return him to
power to continue to do same.’’
The APC spokesman said Atiku and Obi made a shocking confession that their administration will grant amnesty to looters.
He also accused the PDP presidential
candidate of making spirited attempt “to get foreign validation for his
floundering presidential bid which is not to serve Nigerians but to
pander to the wishes of his friends, and some shadowy foreign concerns
and interests.
Source: This Day
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