PDP Threatens To Boycott 2019 Election

Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic, has threatened to boycott the 2019 general elections. 

The national chairman of the party PDP, Uche Secondus, said on Thursday that the party was consulting with its relevant organs, and was reviewing last weekend’s Ekiti election.

Mr Secondus said the governorship election was rigged, saying the party contested against the Independent National Electoral Commission and the security agencies, not the All Progressives Congress, APC.

He said this while receiving a Joint International Election Observation Mission fielded by two American international civil agencies, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) on Thursday, at the party headquarters in Abuja.

A statement from the media office of the chairman, signed by the media Adviser, Ike Abonyi, quoted Mr Secondus as saying that what happened in Ekiti state was not just electoral fraud but robbery in connivance with INEC and security agencies.

“In Ekiti state governorship election last Saturday we did not contest with APC we contested with INEC and Security agencies.

“Ekiti election is strategic to the general election in 2019 and from what happened we are consulting with our people to see whether we would participate in the election or not.”

Mr Secondus said there were clear indications for all to see that the ruling APC was scheming to engineer more crisis in the land to enable them manipulate the electorate process in their favour in connivance with security agencies.

“For us as an opposition party we have lost confidence onINEC and security agencies,” he said.

The National Organizing Security (NOS) of the party, Austin Akobundu, who also briefed the visiting international agencies, said the election involved various electoral fraud through intimidation and ballot snatching.

Mr Akobundu said INEC fraud was so transparent that it produced conflicting figures of the result and had to pull it down from their website.

The leader of the delegation, Pauline Bakaer, president emeritus, Fund for Peace United States, said they were on the visit to share ideas with the opposition party on their challenges ahead of the 2019 general election.