2023: PDP governors flay Buhari, APC for turning Villa into party headquarters

Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, otherwise known as PDP Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF) on Monday condemned President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) for turning the Presidential Villa into the new APC headquarters where coerced PDP members are being paraded at intervals.

The PDP governors insisted that rather than indulging in such self-deceit, it was time to bring the activities of bandits, kidnappers and terrorists to an end through increased use of military equipment, traditional means of conflict resolution and technology for surveillance and the development of the political will to flush them out.

The forum added that kidnapping, banditry and terrorism were not business ventures as claimed by APC, but heinous state crimes that was destroying the Nigerian economy, the educational and social future of our children and causing significant social upheavals in society.

The Chairman of PDP-GF and governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal disclosed this in a communique issued at the end of the 11th meeting of the forum held in Bauchi.

The forum called on the federal lawmakers to entrench electronic transmission of results of elections for free, fair and credible elections in the country.

The PDP governors requested the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy appropriate technologies necessary to ensure that the votes of every Nigerian counted and made to count.

It condemned the attempt to foist on all political parties, only the direct method of conducting primaries through the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, adding that the method was prone to massive rigging, as evidenced by a situation where President Buhari scored about 15 million votes in the 2018 APC Direct Primaries only to score 15 million votes from the entire country in the 2019 general election.

The forum rather advised that political parties should be allowed to decide whether to use the direct or indirect methods of conducting primaries as part of internal democracy in political parties.

The PDP governors reiterated the need for the NNPC and other revenue-generating agencies of government to strictly abide by the constitution by remitting all their revenue less cost of production into the Federation Account as provided for by S.162 of the constitution.

Read also: Presidency 2023: Southern governors; stand and implication for S/East, S/South

It condemned the use of underhand tactics to arm-twist some PDP governors and other stakeholders to join the APC, adding that the party has wrecked Nigeria’s economy, turned Nigeria into a killing field and has nothing to offer Nigerians but misery and bad governance.

It, therefore, enjoined all Nigerians of goodwill to take advantage of the ongoing registration of voters by INEC to register to vote.

The governors in attendance include Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (Sokoto state); Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia state); Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom state); Douye Diri (Bayelsa state); Samuel Ortom (Benue state); Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta state) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu state).

Others are Nyesom Wike (Rivers state); Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde (Oyo state); Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri (Adamawa state); Godwin Obaseki (Edo state); Bala Mohammed (Bauchi state); Darius Ishaku (Taraba state) and the Deputy Governor of Zamfara state, Mahdi Aliyu Mohammed.