- Opposition: Jonathan is planning to perpetuate self in office
- Ruling party dismisses allegations as pack of lies
By Olawale Olaleye in Lagos and Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The All Progressives Congress (APC) and ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday resumed their tirades with the oppostion party alleging that there are fresh plans by President Goodluck Jonathan and his party to scuttle the elections slated for March 28 and April 11 respectively.
But in a swift reaction, the PDP accused the APC of raising series of false alarms and outright lies.
The APC at a news conference in Lagos, said the alleged plan conceived by the ruling party, boils down to Jonathan perpetuating himself in office.
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, who was accompanied by the spokesperson for the presidential campaign organisation of the APC, Mallam Garba Shehu, maintained that PDP and the presidency have not relented in their efforts to ensure that the elections do not hold as scheduled.
APC however noted that the eyes of the world were focused on Nigeria to organise a free, fair, credible and violence-free election that would not only deepen her democracy but also show to the world that her leadership position in the West African sub-region and the African continent is not a fluke.
“While we in the APC, and definitely most Nigerians, also expect nothing less than very transparent elections, indications are that those at the helms have grown so desperate that they do not even want the elections and to hold.
“And even if the elections must hold at all, they must be held on their own terms: No PVCs, No card readers, No Jega, and the military must be deployed to intimidate voters!
“These dangerous conditionalities by the ruling party, the PDP, and the Jonathan administration have been playing out publicly, no thanks to the inauspicious comments by elements of the ruling party, who could no longer hide their disdain for credible polls and, indeed, for democracy itself.
“But what has not played out openly are some of the criminal and unlawful actions being secretly hatched by the PDP and the Jonathan administration to rig the forthcoming general election and perpetuate themselves in power.
“The handwriting is clear, this administration knows it can never win in a free, fair and credible election because of its appalling record in office. Nigerians want change through the ballot box, and they are determined to effect that change with their PVCs,” the APC spokesperson said.
Listing some of the developments it described as “evil plots being hatched to deny the people of Nigerians their right to vote for change,” APC hinted that “there is a plot to transfer a humongous amount of money into the bank account of the Independent National Electorial Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and then claim that the money came from Bola Tinubu and the APC in order to justify the ongoing plan to sack Jega so he won’t organise the elections.”
Beyond Jega, Mohammed alleged: “There is also a plan to credit the bank accounts of some key national institutions with huge amounts of money purportedly from our party, the APC, ostensibly to compromise those institutions.”
Furthermore, APC alleged that there was plan to use some political parties that are satellites of the PDP to push for the postponement of the elections again.
“The plot is to get the parties to address a press conference to say the elections should not hold in the North-east until September 2015 because of the ongoing counter-insurgency battle there.
“The intention is to make sure Jega’s tenure expires before the polls, so that they can appoint a malleable card-carrying member of the PDP as INEC chair to conduct the polls.
“There is a plan to use the security agencies to intimidate key opposition leaders as well as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and telecommunications service providers to disrupt voice and data transmission, especially in APC strongholds on election day,” the party claimed, as Muhammed read from a prepared speech.
The APC also reiterated the fact that the telephone lines of its leaders have been bugged and their movements daily monitored, noting that top on the list of the security agencies to be used against the opposition is the DSS, that will be used to compel all Resident Electoral Commissioners in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to hand over the names and telephone numbers of all INEC’s regular and ad hoc staff, who will conduct the elections, as part of Jonathan administration’s rigging plans.
“It is no longer news that a signal has been sent to all state commands of the DSS to get the list of all INEC Returning Officers and ad hoc staff before March 10.
“There is also the ongoing illegal recruitment of over 500 new cadets into one of the country’s security outfits, 50 per cent of whom are from the home state of the outfit’s top brass, in violation of the provisions of the constitution, especially as the recruitment does not reflect the Federal Character
“Nocturnal meetings are being held between various heads of national security agencies and the leadership of the PDP to undermine the coming elections; the presidency has retained the services of two Israelis and a Belgian, who are currently holed up in the Aso Rock Villa to hack and corrupt INEC computers on election day, with the trio having already been paid 25 per cent of their contract fees upfront.
“There is an ongoing effort to compromise the card readers, which the Jonathan administration sees as inimical to its rigging plans. Huge funds are being provided for retired and serving security personnel to buy up PVCs, with the hope that they can be used once the card readers are compromised. Remember, gentlemen, that there is a case in court seeking to declare the use of the card reader in the forthcoming elections unconstitutional.
“In the days leading up to the elections, the Jonathan administration is planning to give the opposition the Ekiti treatment by massively arresting key opposition leaders, with a view to destabilising their ranks, putting them away and paving the way for a free rein of their rigging agents. Towards this end, thousands of signed blank detention orders have been procured.
“As part of the plan to implicate our leaders, illegal substances may be put into their checked-in luggage during local and international flights, that is why we are calling on our leaders to travel only with their carry-on baggage.
“Let me say that the detailed plans by the desperate Jonathan administration and the PDP are part of the massive intelligence we are receiving daily from patriotic Nigerians, within and outside the government, who are eager to see the organisation of free, fair, credible and violence-free elections that will catapult Nigeria to the league of truly democratic nations,” the party alleged.
However, the PDP has accused the APC of raising series of false alarms and outright lies.
The party further said this has clearly justified its profiling as a party of “one week, one lie.”
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday, said Nigerians are however not surprised that the APC has officially adopted the use of fabrications having exhausted its fake campaign promises which were not able to upstage the verifiable achievements of the Jonathan-led PDP administration.
“Indeed, Nigerians are not surprised at the contents of the recent false alarms by the APC as they are undoubtedly a reflection of the character, inner thoughts and ideology of its leaders. These ignoble ideas are clearly incompatible with the ideology of the PDP and President Jonathan who has overtime demonstrated the qualities of a true democrat and not a reformed one,” the party said.
The PDP noted that the opposition in its penchant for falsehood failed to realise that under the current financial system, it is practically impossible to transfer the so called humongous amount of money into any bank account without the source being traced by relevant independent financial monitoring bodies like the EFCC.
“In any case, we note that the allegation by APC is suspect and betrays an attempt to cover-up. We ask, is it that the APC has already been paying monies into accounts of INEC officials and some institutions of government with a view to compromising them and is now using the allegation as a subterfuge to distract the financial monitoring agencies and cover its tracks?
“We challenge the APC to come out clear on the actual link between its leader, Tinubu, whose antecedents and reputation are well known to all, and the said transfer plot? Was Tinubu’s name also dropped by the APC as a strategy to pre-empt findings by anti-graft agencies in a bid to cover a crime?
“We have also noted the hues and cries of the opposition regarding the issue of PVCs and card readers for the elections but Nigerians are not short in their memory to recall that it is not the PDP but APC that had issues with security agencies over attempts to hack into INEC’s data base and to clone the PVCs.
“Restating its readiness for the March 28 and April 11 elections, the ruling party said: “APC’s resort to wild allegations and baseless utterances is aimed at causing confusion, a clear indication that the opposition is indeed scared of the elections, having been exposed in their deceit, empty promises and apparent lack of capacity to lead the nation.”
Also, the PDP presidential campaign organisation has denounced claims that the party is plotting to frame INEC’s Chairman, Jega, and some officials of the APC.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, the spokesman of the PDP presidential campaigns, Femi Fani-Kayode said: “We are not trying to frame up Jega. We have no plans to plant any illegal substance in the bags of any of the leaders of the APC whenever they travel. We are not trying to compromise the telephone numbers of any of the INEC officials.
“President Jonathan is not planning to arrest opposition leaders before the elections. The presidency has not retained the services of any foreigner to corrupt or compromise INEC computers on election day and we are not planning to do any of the other reprehensible things that they have alleged.”
According to Fani-Kayode, “The truth is that if they were in our position, these are the sort of sordid things that they would do. Such dirty things and filthy tactics are a way of life and an art with them. But for us, such things are alien, perverse and unacceptable.”
He said the PDP presidential campaign organisation was not surprised that the APC is resorting to peddling falsehood in order to gain public sympathy.
“For quite some time now, the party has been displaying its expertise in the cheap propaganda for which it is well-known. We take exception to their fiction and false claims and we will not take this matter lightly.
“These spurious allegations follow a well-documented pattern of lies that only recently saw them falsely claiming that an interview conducted by one of its sympathisers at the Abuja Transcorp HILTON HOTEL
was conducted by a so-called independent journalist in the United Kingdom. The whole world now knows that, on that occasion, as in many other occasions, the APC told a barefaced lie,” Fani
Kayode stated.
He said new smear campaign against the PDP-led federal government is clearly propelled by the fact that the APC knows fully that it has gone as far as it can go with its propaganda and deceit and that it will be thoroughly beaten by the PDP at the polls in the upcoming elections.
According to the PDP presidential campaigns spokesman, “The APC and its leaders are simply unraveling and falling apart at the seams. They are the ones who had perfected a plan to rig the forthcoming elections through the lopsided distribution of PVCs.
Accordingly, he said, “This is why we insist on the deployment of soldiers in the forthcoming elections as it was done in the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Osun where APC won, in Ondo where Labour Party won, in Anambra where APGA won, and in Ekiti where the PDP won.
“One of the APC governors, Adams Oshiomhole, during the 2012 governorship election in Edo State and I quote: “The army is here to deal with trouble-makers. The only people who need to be worried are those who intend to cause trouble… As the Governor of Edo State, I believe we need the army to complement the efforts of the Police. I remember that under our “Operation Thunder Storm”, the army has since been involved in complementing the efforts of the Police to provide internal security. So don’t allow anybody to fool you that army is going to harass you, to prevent you from voting. No! The army is here to assist so that your vote will count.” End quote.
“So why is the APC now paranoid about the deployment of soldiers? They are certainly up to something sinister.
“The PDP has always insisted that the INEC has the constitutional duty to conduct free and fair elections and hence has never interfered with the commission’s preparations. Specifically, President Jonathan has always said he and his government have absolutely no intention of interfering with INEC’s activities, even though the INEC chairman and commissioners are his appointees.
“We can categorically state that the PDP, having earned pass marks for overseeing the conduct of free and fair elections in the past had no plans to compromise the coming elections, given our high-level of preparedness for the exercise.
“As at today, President Jonathan has led the campaign of PDP to all the 36 states of the Federation, specifically to most places which the APC and other parties had never gone to. We are, by this, confident of winning the forthcoming elections by the grace of the Almighty God.