As Nigerians at home and the Diaspora celebrate the 30th anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, also known as Democracy Day on Monday, the Peoples Democratic Party has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission and the All Progressives Congress of undermining democracy and disrespecting the memory of the martyr of the struggle, the late Chief Moshood Abiola.
The opposition party, in a statement by its spokesman, Debo Ologunagba, urged Nigerians to use the occasion of the celebration to demand the entrenchment of democratic tenets in the nation’s polity.
“The barefaced manipulations of the 2023 general elections by the All Progressives Congress and the Independent National Electoral Commission amounts to an unpardonable assault and rape of democracy and disregard for the will of the people; the very ills which Chief MKO Abiola fought and died for.
“June 12 epitomises the struggle by Nigerians against corrupt, manipulative and anti-democratic system; against injustice, impunity and electoral fraud which INEC, under Prof Mahmood Yakubu, now represents.
“It is, indeed, heartrending that all the steady progress and gains made by successive PDP administrations in reforming our electoral system have been completely wiped off by INEC in the conduct of the 2023 general elections,” Ologunagba said.
Also, PDP presidential candidate and ex-Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, said, “As I congratulate Nigerians on this day, in celebration of the return to civil rule, I call our consciousness to the reality that democracy in Nigeria remains in bondage, and it will need the energy of all of us to rescue it.”
“On this occasion of Democracy Day, it is time for us to reflect as a people and a country on our journey to becoming a democratic society.”
He added that “democracy without a corresponding commitment to the principles of fairness and fidelity to the rule of play by stakeholders in conducting elections still leaves the people prostrate to dictatorship tendencies.”
But reacting, the ruling All Progressives Congress berated the opposition PDP for what it called a double-standard following its loss at the last presidential election.
The Director of Publicity for the APC, Bala Ibrahim, in a phone interview with one of our correspondents, said, ”If you have any objection with regards the pronouncement of the electoral umpire, all you need to do is to follow up legal processes as provided for under democracy. The PDP is already pursuing that angle. But I am seeing now that they don’t believe in the outcome of the election. Is it to say they have jettisoned their petition at the tribunal? Are they now turning themselves from democrats to dictators or autocrats?
“If there is anybody that should be ashamed of themselves, it should be the PDP. They are the ones talking from both sides of the mouths. You cannot be engaged in a game which rules you agreed to and simply because you have lost as pronounced by the umpire, you now want to say the rules of the game have not been followed. What are they saying?”
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