APC alleges fresh plot to scuttle Feb elections

The All Progressives Congress has said it has uncovered a fresh plot by those it called anti-democratic forces to use the courts to postpone or scuttle next month’s general elections.

APC called on the judiciary to protect the nation’s democracy, urging Nigerians to “repudiate the desperadoes” and their allies who are behind the plot.

In a statement in Lagos on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said after the efforts to stop its presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), failed, those the party described as anarchists had perfected plans to “use the courts to stop the elections at all cost.”

It alleged that the case instituted at a Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday, seeking a declaration that Gen. Buhari lacked the requisite qualification to contest the February 14 presidential election, was the first in a series of court cases to be instituted to stop the polls.

”We are not surprised at this, because these desperadoes are so predictable. They are following the footsteps of the infamous Association for Better Nigeria, which helped to annul the 1993 elections and which threw Nigeria into a crisis from which it has yet to fully recover, over 20 years later.

”We can only appeal to the judiciary not to become a willing tool in the hands of those who will stop at nothing to scuttle the elections, just to perpetuate their firm grip on power,” APC said.

The party argued that President Goodluck Jonathan was afraid that if the elections would hold as scheduled, he would lose to Buhari by a wide margin.

APC said, “An ally of presidential aide Doyin Okupe has revealed that President Jonathan will rather have the military take over than hand over to the APC candidate. Though Okupe has made a tepid denial, the revelation has exposed the thinking and the desperation within the Presidency, ahead of the elections.

“We are also aware that up till this moment, the President has yet to repudiate the ex-militants in the Niger Delta, who have threatened the country’s very existence if he(Jonathan) is not re-elected, as if elections are won by fiat.

“When this is added to ongoing moves to depopulate the North-east, which is an opposition stronghold, using scare tactics, one can see that this presidency and the PDP are as terrified and desperate as they can be.”