Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday cautioned the military against executing President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to shoot ballot-box snatchers, declaring the directive as an unlawful order.
Atiku, who spoke at the 84th National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PDP in Abuja, accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of plot to manipulate smart card readers during the rescheduled Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, saying APC agents have been trained to use hand-held device that would slow down the card readers in PDP strongholds.
This is as strong indications also emerged on Tuesday that President Buhari, at his meeting with service chiefs, may have reinforced his earlier directives to security personnel not to allow ballot box snatchers go scot-free.
Prior to his return to the PDP in late 2017, Atiku was one of the APC stalwarts that helped Buhari, then APC candidate, win the 2015 presidential election.
But speaking at the PDP NEC meeting yesterday, Atiku said voters in PDP strongholds in the South South, South East and North Central geopolitical zones were likely to have their card readers slowed down as against their counterparts in the North West.
“We have just discovered that the APC have hired many of their operatives and have taken them to China to be trained, and they have been so trained, and they are back, and they are equipped with devices that are meant to slow or fasten our card readers,” Atiku alleged.
“So, if you are in the South-South, South-East and North-Central, you are likely to get your card readers to be slowed by those APC operatives…But if you are from the North-West or North-East, the tendency is that they will use these machines to fast-track the readings of your card readers, so that many of their supporters can vote while disenfranchising the other three zones,” he said.
Atiku described Buhari’s directive to the military against ballot box snatchers as undemocratic, stressing that the military has no role to play in the conduct of elections.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, who is also director-general of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, warned the APC against ruining the nation’s democracy, accusing the ruling party of planning to scuttle the forthcoming election.
“My message to them (APC) is that you won in 2015 because democracy was working in Nigeria. This democracy that worked for you is to work for generations yet unborn. Do not ruin Nigeria’s democracy because of your ambition. Democracy is bigger than you and as such it worked for you and it will also work for others,” Saraki said.
“Nigeria is a country that is practicing democracy. Nigeria is a country that is governed by rule of law. What Mr President said yesterday (Monday) suggested that this country is governed by jungle justice. We in PDP are not for election rigging, we are against election rigging. We sign strongly that the law should be applied on anybody that carries out election rigging. We must operate as country with rule of law and democracy,” he said.
Other speakers at the meeting, including Uche Secondus, PDP national chairman, urged the military not to obey the president’s order, while also calling on INEC to audit all the materials that have been collected and distributed in order to address issues that could lead to another postponement.
But briefing State House correspondents after a closed door security meeting with Buhari yesterday, Mohammed Adamu, Inspector General of Police, reiterated the president’s Monday statement to the effect that “whoever snatches ballot box on election day will have him or herself to blame”.
Buhari, who spoke at the APC expanded caucus meeting in Abuja on Monday, had said directives had been issued to security operatives to deal ruthlessly with ballot box snatchers.
“Today, members of the security community and intelligence community came and briefed Mr. President on the security situation in the country. We deliberated on the consequences and came up with the resolve to further provide adequate security within the country so that the electorates will come out and cast their votes without any fear of molestation,” Adamu said.
“Every Nigerian is encouraged to come out on election day and cast his or her vote without any fear of molestation. Aybody that feels that he can come out and disrupt process should have a rethink because that situation will not be allowed. If you plan and allow yourself to be used as touts, whatever happens to you, you will take it,” he said.
Adamu added that “ballot snatching, ballot buying, thuggery will never be allowed”, adding that anybody planning to snatch ballot boxes or planning to be used will not go scot-free.
“So, you better don’t allow yourself to be used,” he said.
The meeting, BusinessDay gathered, had focused on the states that have higher-than-average security challenges than others. Four states were invited, including the governors of Yobe, Borno, Adamawa and Kaduna States.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE & TONY AILEMEN, Abuja
