The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday condemned the participation of Service Chiefs in President Muhammadu Buhari‘s campaign rally tagged, ‘Next Level’.
The party frowned at what it termed the move by President Buhari to politicise and compromise the military by dragging in Service Chiefs to attend and participate in his re-election campaign rally.
This is as it urged Nigerians to use this year’s Eid-el Maulud celebration to pray for the nation and rekindle the sense of national unity, fear of God and love for one another as compatriots while shunning all divisive and disruptive tendencies.
PDP also urged the people to pray for a new direction and God’s guidance, particularly as the nation gears up for the 2019 general elections to select new sets of leaders at various levels across the country.
The party, in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, described the participation of the Service Chiefs in the campaign as completely unacceptable and objectionable, adding that it sent a very wrong signal to the public regarding the expected professionalism, neutrality and detachment of the institution of the military from partisan politics and could therefore not be justified under any guise.
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It said: “Such participation in partisan politics is a dangerous dimension as it will not only erode the confidence which the citizens repose on the military ahead of the election, but also a recipe for discord and partisan disagreements within the rank and file of the military, result in mutual suspicion in the force and whittle its effectiveness in defending the nation.”
The party maintained that President Buhari, in the desperation to rig and foist himself on the nation in the 2019 election, would stop at nothing in his attempt to compromise and desecrate the institutions, warning that doing so by using the military was a clear invitation to crisis and derailment of our democracy.
The party insisted that the state and its apparatus of power must be separated from partisan politics, cautioning the President not to further divide the nation and set the people on collision course with security forces, as such will spell doom for our nation.
It urged the military high command to be wary of the antics of the Buhari Presidency, which it said, was bent at compromising the Armed Forces ahead the elections and take decisive steps towards insulating its personnel and formations from political manipulation of the Buhari Presidency.