January 15, 2019
Press Conference
Fascism: Get Ready To Defend Your Country, PDP Charges Nigerians
Gentlemen
of the press, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today, makes a clarion
call to all Nigerians to brace up for the February 16, 2019
Presidential election as the only way to defend and save our nation from
the fascism being plotted by the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and the
All Progressives Congress (APC).
Nigerians are already aware that
the APC and the Buhari Presidency are not serious with campaigns ahead
of the Presidential elections. They know that the APC and its candidate,
President Buhari are seeking ways to enmesh the election in crisis,
stalemate the electoral process and pave the way for rigging and
actualization of plots to perpetuate President Buhari in office.
With
the prevailing state of our polity; the flagrant violation of our
constitution, continuous attacks on institutions of democracy and
principle of separation of powers, consistent abuse of human rights,
erosion of personal freedom, uninhibited extra-judicial killings,
illegal detention, attack on peaceful protesters, clampdown on the media
and vocal members of the Civil Society, as well as the unleashing of
brutality on innocent citizens, that have characterized the Buhari
Presidency; it is manifestly clear that our nation is on a rapid descent
into fascism, which we must all resist with our votes.
The PPCO
urges all compatriots to note that any vote for APC is an endorsement of
fascism and allowing President Buhari another tenure will be a pathway
to full totalitarianism, where citizens would be treated as vassals in a
conquered territory.
Today, our freedom and personal liberty as a
people are under threat. Our rights as constitutionally guaranteed as
citizens are about to be completely taken away. Our last lines of
defence as a free people; our legislature and our judiciary are also
under siege.
We are all witnesses to the unrelenting assault on
the institution of the judiciary and the courts by the Buhari Presidency
and the APC. This siege on the Judiciary has now come to a climax with
the widely condemned attempt by the Buhari Presidency and the APC to
forcefully remove the Chief Justice of the Nigeria, (CJN) Justice Walter
Onnoghen.
In spite of widespread condemnation, President Buhari
and the APC have refused to show remorse. If anything, they have carried
on as if Nigerians are already a conquered people.
This ignoble
act is with the view to replace Justice Onnoghen with a pliable CJN that
will execute the plot to annex the court and use them to curtail
freedom of expression and to silence opposition members as well as
perceived opponents of the Buhari administration ahead of the February
election.
Such attempt at annexations is to subject judicial
officers under the control of the Attorney General to determine and even
write judgments on political and human rights cases and cover
atrocities of anti-democratic forces.
The world can recall how
the Buhari Presidency, in a widely condemned ‘sting operation’ in 2016,
used the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to hound and round up
sitting Supreme Court and High Court judges in Nigeria.
Since
that ‘sting operation’, our judiciary Nigeria has remained under siege
with the agents of the Buhari Presidency and the APC directly
interfering in cases and trying to direct the rulings of courts.
Nigerians
and the world can recall also how agents of the Buhari Presidency and
the APC, last year, besieged and attempted to forcefully remove the
elected leadership of the National Assembly; the symbol of our
democracy.
Nigerians will also recall how the APC and the Buhari
Presidency used apparatus of state powers to seal the legislative
complex, unleashed thugs to invade the Senate chamber, disrupted
legislative proceedings and forcefully carted away the mace, the emblem
of the sovereignty and authority of the people.
In our slide
into fascism, Nigerians are daily falling victims of extreme torture,
illegal detention, extra-judicial and arbitrary killings, forceful
crackdown on peaceful protesters and mass burial by unrestrained agents
of the state, as detailed in the 2017/2018 Amnesty International (AI)
Human Rights Report.
In the same vein, there have been concerted
efforts by the government to gag the media leading to the manhandling of
journalists and invasion of media houses over reports considered
unfavorable to government.
Furthermore, Nigerians can recall how
the Buhari Presidency attempted to inject crisis into the electoral
process with the delay in the presentation of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) election budget and the refusal by President
Buhari to sign the amendments to the Electoral Act which eliminates
openings for rigging.
This is in addition to the widely condemned
foisting of Mrs. Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s relation by marriage,
as head of the collation of results of the Presidential poll as well as
plot to use the Police as suppressive tool to intimidate voters and
assist APC agents to unleash violence and manipulate the process, for
which President Buhari is bent on retaining the overtly partisan
Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris even when his tenure had
expired.
This administration has turned out to be the most
vicious in the history of our nation. Nigerians and the world must
therefore rise in condemnation of this dangerous drift towards, Hitler’s
Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Idi Amin’s Uganda, Charles Taylor’s Liberia
and Than Shwe’s Burma.
Perhaps, President Buhari has forgotten
that Nigeria is a democratic state, and needs to be reminded that as a
people, we have chosen democracy as a form of government with the
personal freedom, liberty and rule of law that it guarantees. Nigerians
will never accept any kind of draconian rule and dictatorial tendencies.
We therefore charge all Nigerians; all victims of injustice and
brutality of the Buhari Presidency; all victims of the mindless
killings encouraged by the insensitivity of the Buhari Presidency; all
those impoverished by the corruption and incompetence of the Buhari
administration and all lovers of democracy in Nigeria to get ready to
defend our nation and save her from fascism by voting out President
Buhari on February 16, 2019.
The February Presidential election
is therefore a referendum for our freedom. We make a clarion call on
Nigerians to vote in defence of our nation. We must vote in defence of
our rights and lives as free citizens; we must vote in defence of rule
of law and resistance of repressive forces and political bandits seeking
to foist a fascist regime on our nation.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
Director, Media & Publicity
PDP Presidential Campaign Organization
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