PDP claims APC is responsible for attacks on INEC infrastructure
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) institutions across the nation were attacked on Wednesday, according to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which blamed the All Progressives Congress (APC) for planning the attacks.
In the past two months, thieves have attacked the INEC offices in the states of Ebonyi, Imo, Ogun, and Osun, destroying voter identification cards (PVCs), voting booths, generator sets, and other supplies.
The party expressed worry that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has refused to warn his party members against violence and other actions harmful to the development of the country’s democracy in a statement released by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba.
The PDP pleaded with security forces to foil the APC’s nefarious plan to thwart the nation’s democratic process.
The following was included in the statement: “Part of the plot is the current attacks on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) facilities in different parts of the country as witnessed in Ogun, Osun, and Imo States, where sections crucial to the conduct of elections, particularly those connected to the collection of Permanent Voters Cards, were targeted and destroyed.
Our party has also been informed of APC plans to organise attacks in other states, including Kogi and Delta, as well as certain South-Eastern and Northern states, with the goal of undermining the electoral process in as many states as possible.
Our party has access to intelligence that suggests the attack on INEC facilities is intended to stop newly registered voters from picking up their PVCs, destroy the PVCs so that they are no longer available for pickup in INEC offices, and, thirdly, destroy INEC equipment and impair its ability to conduct elections.
Additionally, the APC has added a very unsettling element by ‘buying’ PVCs from unaware Nigerians through financial inducements disguising as empowerment initiatives.
In any event, our party is not shocked by Tinubu and the APC’s use of violence; it is a clear admission of electoral defeat, which explains, it appears, why the APC’s presidential candidate chose to skip the signing of the National Peace Accord by candidates for the 2023 elections.
His actions and words give the impression that he is endorsing the continued violence in our political process.
Of course, the closed-door meeting in London when Tinubu instructed his party members to use violence against Nigerians accidentally leaked to the public. In order to deceive security forces into focusing their investigations on criminal elements and societal unrest rather than the true offender, the APC, the APC set out to devastate our country with bloodshed.
