“Their strategy is simple: discredit the election even before it is held, and continue during and after the poll with a view to convincing the West – which they believe they have won to their side using lobbyist-propelled propaganda — that the election is not credible. The handwriting is on the wall for all discerning people to see. While President Buhari has received warm and genuine reception and adulation from huge crowds everywhere he has gone to campaign , their candidate has been exposed to apathetic and thinning crowds! Their numbers just don’t add up” – Lai Mohammed exposed PDP-led coalition of CUPP.
The Nigeria’s Government has said, in show of desperation, that opposition politicians in the country have started lobbying foreign countries to discredit the outcome of the February 16 presidential election, if President Muhammadu Buhari wins.
Campaign outings so far show that Nigerians have already narrowed the presidential race to a contest between candidates of two leading political parties namely President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), signifying who they want to vote as their President in the coming presidential election.
The sign has been indicated to the extent that PDP leaders are already said to be worried by scanty crowd in most of their presidential campaign outings compared to the mammoth that continue to greet the presidential campaign outings of the APC in both North and South of the country.
It will be recalled that the crowd in Jos, Plateau State capital was so much of a surge telling President Buhari that he needed not to talk before they knew that they would re-elect him as President to continue his good work beginning from 2019 while the firmament of Kano almost pulled down as a result of enthusiastic crowd that trouped the Sani Abacha Stadium in the metropolis to indicate their endorsement of the President. Despite the clear indications, the PDP-led opposition have said openly in recent times that they would not accept results of the election so long it favours President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC in a democracy where number is determinant.
Many unfolding events connecting to these threats by the opposition include the call by Miyetti Allah, in its reaction to Amnesty International controversial report recently, telling the Federal Government that the rights group was working for selfish interests even as it indicted the PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar for being involved in the anti-Nigerian report and called on the authorities to place both of them under close monitoring.
The recent smuggling of a man, who was Nigeria’s former vice president and supposed incoming president of the country into the United States of America as “aide” to just one senate president just to escape being arrested for his corruption indictment in the western country to prove to Nigerian electorate that he is not as corrupt as claimed by Nigerians including the ruling party, led to the curiosity that exposed the desperation of the PDP politicians alleged to be responsible for the worst corruption that led Nigeria to the bad economic and insecurity state it was before the current administration picked it up and began to fix it.
Another cause of curiosity is the sudden resurgence of Boko Haram activities and bandits as well as proliferations of dangerous weapons said to be piled up by politicians traced to the opposition to cause violence at the coming election with a view to prove to the international community while the elections should not be considered as creditable and so make case for Interim National Government.
But Muhammadu Buhari-led Government is insisting that it is fully on ground to prove the opposition wrong as, according to it, all their plots from Dubai to the US are not dark to it.
Although the PDP-led opposition political parties under the aegis of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) said the allegation was meant to scare away members of the international community from monitoring the election, many Nigerians are telling the government to do anything lawful within its disposal to stop whoever is into violence at coming election without looking his party, tribe or religion, regardless of what name the government will be called.
It will be recalled that CUPP was formed at a coalition meeting led by the PDP’s National Chairman where 42 political parties and groups signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) early last year in the heat of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “campaign of calumny” against the re-election of Buhari, which was followed by what later became misrepresented “herdsmen killing” in Benue, Taraba and Plateau and anti-Buhari activities of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
On Monday, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, addressed a press conference in Abuja during which he opened up on the findings of government and its security agencies regarding the unholy plans of the opposition for Nigeria before, during and after election.
The Minister said, in show of desperation, that opposition politicians in the country are lobbying foreign countries to discredit the outcome of the presidential election, if President Muhammadu Buhari wins.
To achieve this, he said they were planning to send a 10-member delegation to some countries to sell the idea that the Buhari Presidency would not hold credible elections.
When asked to be specific on the particular opposition parties behind the alleged plot, the minister simply said, “If you are talking about opposition, we know of the PDP and the CUPP (Peoples Democratic Party and the Coalition of United Political Parties)”.
Mohammed said the government and Nigerians must not allow those he described as “desperate politicians” to scuttle the nation’s democracy.
Recall that on January 21, 2019, the minister had also alleged that some opposition politicians were planning to scuttle the general elections by instigating widespread violence across the country, an allegation that was dismissed by the opposition.
The minister on Monday said, “Today, still based on credible intelligence, we can reveal that the opposition members are moving a step further.
“They are working hard to discredit the forthcoming elections before, during and after the polls. Specifically, they are sending a delegation to some Western capitals, including London, Brussels and Washington, DC, to push the concocted line that the Buhari administration has perfected the plan to rig the polls.
“They are therefore pushing for a rejection of the results if the President wins re-election. They are also predicting carnage in the event of the President’s victory.
“Already, they have started flying the rigging kite domestically. They have been engaging in incendiary rhetoric and in making outlandish claims using several fronts, including the nebulous CUPP which, by the way, is nothing more than a reincarnated Association for Better Nigeria.”
The minister said the opposition had also targeted both the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Nigeria Police Force in their actions, with the aim of discrediting the elections.
He said, “Their strategy is simple: discredit the election even before it is held, and continue during and after the poll with a view to convincing the West – which they believe they have won to their side using lobbyist-propelled propaganda — that the election is not credible.
“The handwriting is on the wall for all discerning people to see. While President Buhari has received warm and genuine reception and adulation from huge crowds everywhere he has gone to campaign, their candidate has been exposed to apathetic and thinning crowds! Their numbers just don’t add up.”
But the CUPP, in a statement by its first national spokesperson, Imo Ugochinyere, said contrary to the minister’s claims, the ruling All Progressives Congress was the one deploying machinery to rig the elections.
Ugochinyere said, “Who is attempting to buy votes through the fraudulent TraderMoni which has failed? Who is plotting to import voters from neighbouring countries which has been exposed? Who is deploying security agencies particularly the military through the hurriedly put together Operation Python Dance III to intimidate voters?
“All these have failed, hence like they purchased an order with which the Chief Justice of Nigeria was unlawfully forced out of office, they have purchased a Magistrates’ Court order to arrest key opposition leaders including Senator Bukola Saraki, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, Senator Ben Murray Bruce, Uche Secondus and 16 other leaders of the opposition.”
The CUPP’s spokesman did not however tell if, in countries his coalition is lobbying as seen in recent act of Saraki’s smuggling of Atiku into a forbidden society like US as his “aide” under diplomatic cover to escape arrest for his corruption indictment in the country, people who have cases of corruption and impunity will be left because they are politicians and will not be touched by the hands of the law.
