PDP Expresses Fear Over Rigging Of 2019 General Elections

PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus

The Peoples Democratic Party has expressed concerns that the 2019 general elections in the country may be rigged by the All Progressives Congress in collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, stated this in Abuja on Wednesday when he received a United Nations delegation which paid him a courtesy visit at the party’s national secretariat, Punch reports.

Addressing the delegation, Secondus stated that previous reports from elections conducted by INEC since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office leaves a lot to be desired in terms of what to expect during the 2019 polls.

He said, “We were in power as a party for 16 years to be precise, we deepened democracy with our actions. In the last general elections of 2015, we lost and conceded defeat, without attempting to go to court.

“It is the first time that a party and its candidate would decide not to contest the outcome of an election in this country. It has never happened in this country. We did not go to court and our candidate did not go to court as well.

“We realized and decided that the outcome was democracy in action and that it was the will of the people.

“But we have fears today that since the APC came to power, all the elections we have conducted came with huge question marks.”

Shifting attention to INEC, the PDP national chairmen, scored the electoral umpire low for allegedly obliging the dictates of the ruling party when election results don’t go in their favour.

He said, “As a matter of fact, this (INEC) is the only electoral body that has conducted elections several times and they (government) will call for a rerun when it is not in their favour.

“I, therefore, want the delegation to look seriously in the area of free and fair elections that guarantee security.

“This is a point that must be noted by the UN body, that what they have done in the past, the electoral umpire and the Federal Government have not guaranteed free and fair elections. We are very, very worried whether 2019 will be free and fair.”

The Leader of the UN delegation, Mr. Serge Kubwimana, who reiterated UN’s commitmment to ensuring free and fair elections, said the team was in the country on a need assessment mission, and would factor in all inputs from stakeholders to determine the best way to assist INEC during the 2019 elections.

He said, “This mission has been deployed from the UN headquarters in New York city. It is a mission that has been deployed in response to request on electoral system from the chairperson of INEC.

“And the way we do it in the UN, in order to determine the areas of support, we conduct this type of mission and the overall context in which the election is taking place — the political violence, security and the like, the legal framework, the capacity and the needs of the electoral management body.

“This is really what this mission is here for and our assessment cannot be done without interacting with the main stakeholders — obviously INEC, Civil Society Organisations, political parties and some of the key institutions: the judiciary, the National Assembly and many others.”