The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called for an immediate investigation into the presence of mercenaries at the presidential rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano on Thursday.
Kola Ologbondiyan, national publicity secretary of the party made its position known while addressing newsmen in Abuja.
Ologbondiyan is also the director, media and publicity of the PDP’s presidential campaign organisation.
The party said it had earlier raised an alarm when President Buhari and the APC rented and smuggled a crowd of aliens from the Niger Republic to populate the Kano rally when Nigerians failed to show up.
The PDP said the president and the APC have compromised Nigeria’s territorial integrity; a situation it said posed a grave danger to national security and the sanctity of the country’s electoral process.
“For a nation contending with insurgency and banditry, the involvement of mercenaries from neighbouring countries in the APC rally must be condemned by all and sundry,” the PDP stated.
“This is particularly against the backdrop of claims by President Buhari that killer herdsmen ravaging our nation are mercenaries who are infiltrating from the Sahel region.
“Nigerians can now see the unfolding of the plots by agents the APC to use mercenaries from neighbouring countries to precipitate a crisis with the aim of scuttling the 2019 general election, having realized that they cannot win in a free, fair and credible election.
With the unfolding scenario, the PDP said it now understand why the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Mongunu (rtd) said unscrupulous elements are mobilising merchants of violence, including armed bandits and terrorists to orchestrate violence during the elections in the country.
Similarly, it said Nigerians now understand when the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said there is an international dimension to the evil plan.
“Some armed mercenaries from the Niger Republic have been contracted to attack top government functionaries, including state governors, across the North-west between now and the elections,” the PDP quoted Mr. Mohammed to have said.
“Today, Nigerians need no further evidence of those planning evil against our nation.
“Already, there is apprehension those miscreants who came from the Niger Republic to President Buhari’s rally are being offered accommodation in our country by the APC to unleash violence immediately it is clear that President Buhari is losing in the February 16 presidential election.
“On account of these, PDP demands an urgent and thorough investigation into the circumstances leading to the presence of politicians and thugs from the Niger Republic at the APC presidential rally in Kano on Thursday.
“The APC and the Buhari Presidency must immediately explain the roles being played by Issa Moussa, Governor of Zinder and his counterpart from Maradi, Zakiri Umar both of the Niger Republic, who were sighted decked in the attires and official logos of the APC, in our political affairs.
“Our security agencies must immediately investigate and lay in the public domain the circumstances leading to their presence, which more or less confirms that the APC has lost all domestic credibility and has assumed a desperate mode.”
The party argued that the presence of the Niger Republic Governors at President Buhari’s rally signposts a direct assault on the credibility of the Presidential elections.
It said the fear was based on INEC’s plans to allow internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Niger Republic to vote, a situation PDP said opened the way for aliens to infiltrate as IDPs and participate in the country’s elections.
“Our apprehensions are accentuated by INEC’s recent mass creation of additional polling units which have not been properly designated and which may be deployed for the perpetuation of monumental electoral fraud.
“We note how Kano State, in 2015, delivered 1.9 million votes to the APC presidential candidate in circumstances devoid of transparency and credulity.
“Moreover, the promise by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state to deliver five million votes to Presidential Buhari in the 2019 elections is predicated on the unfettered opening of our international borders to foreign political interests.
“What was the true purpose of the invitation of these foreigners to the APC rally in Kano on Thursday? What secret deals did APC leaders make with them at the expense of our national security?
“It begs the question how a Government that vilified credible international bodies that genuinely advised on the need for a free and fair election, as interfering in our elections, would now be spending public resources rent political mercenaries from neighbouring countries.
“We know that APC’s jettisoning of our territorial integrity and national security to hire crowds from the Niger Republic is borne out of frustration over the recent successes and massive turn out of supporters at PDP rallies held in the North West,” the party said.
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It argued that the spontaneous and mammoth turnouts of supporters and admirers of the PDP as well as its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, even in the APC’s supposed strongholds in the North West states of Kaduna, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi and Kano, have discomfited Mr. Buhari and the ruling party.
It insisted that the 2019 general election is only for Nigerians and urged the people never to allow foreigners to participate in the country’s electoral process.
“We, therefore, call on all Nigerians irrespective of creed, ethnicity and political affiliations to rise in total condemnation of this direct assault on our territorial integrity as a nation.
“Our citizens must henceforth be at alert and get prepared to defend the sovereignty of our nation, which President Buhari and the APC, in their desperation, are ready to trade away,” the PDP concluded.
