Nigeria Opposition party protests at EU, UN, French Embassies

Nigeria Opposition party protests at EU, UN, French Embassies Source ABUJA – For the second time in the past three weeks, the Peoples...

Nigeria Opposition party protests at EU, UN, French Embassies

Source

ABUJA – For the second time in the past three weeks, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday took its protest to the embassies of the European Union, EU, United Nations, UN and France, condemning among other things, what it termed, threat to democracy by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. The protest which took off from the party’s national Presidential campaign headquarters, Maitama, Abuja, attracted key members of the National Working Committee, led by national secretary of the party, Senator Ibrahim Tsauri.

At the European Union Embassy, Senator Tsauri who stood in for the PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus flayed the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government for allegedly constituting itself a clog in the wheel of the nation’s electoral progress since it first assumed office in 2015. In a petition submitted by its leadership on Tuesday, the party urged the international community to press on the government of President Buhari to preserve democratic institutions in the land at all cost even as they reminded them that most of their reports on election observations in the country recently showed in decline in the preservation of democratic ethos.

Addressing newsmen after the submission of the petition at the European Union, Senator Suleiman Nazif, Deputy National Chairman (North) of the party expressed the party’s dissatisfaction at what he called the takeover of the judiciary and the judicial arms of government by the APC-led government. He said, “We are not happy, we are not satisfied with the way democracy is being run in Nigeria. We have come here to complain because we have realized that the National Assembly is being intimidated by the executive.

The judiciary is being arm-twisted, the rule of law has become a mockery and we thought it wise to come and lay our complaint because they no longer listen to anybody and that is why the PDP decided to reach out to the international community to lay complaint with respect to the electoral act that has not been accented to up till now. “You are aware of the systematic collapse in our electoral processes, the way elections are being conducted. In Kogi, we saw what transpired in the last election.

Nigerians have seen for themselves what the opposition party is going through. We saw what happened in Bayelsa, we saw what happened in Imo with respect to the Supreme court judgement and we are calling for a review of that judgement and we believe that with the amount of pressure from intentional organisations, I think the right thing would be done”. On his part, Tsauri said, “Democracy is being derailed in this country. Democracy in Nigeria has been built on five pillars: the media, the electoral empire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the security agents, the judiciary, and the international community. These are the pillars that support democracy in Nigeria. If one of these pillars collapses, democracy will derail on that side. “Out of the five, only two are left. The electoral umpire is compromised, you all know it. Security agents are part and parcel of APC government. Judiciary is being threatened and nobody has any confidence in the judiciary again. The only one that is now left is the media and the international community.

The international community, any where there is going to election, they go and monitor. They bring in their reports and most of these reports are negative. “This is why we came to the international community to tell them that this is the expectations of Nigerians from them and we want them to do exactly what is expected of them to do. “In Nigeria today, if you talk about security, it is zero. When Buhari came into government, he said that he was going to fight corruption, he was going to intensify effort on the economy and then security but none is working now. This government does not listen to any voice except the international community. That is why we are here”. However, the officials of the three embassies failed to make statements after receiving the part’s petition. Also in the protest march were the party’s national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, national woman leader, Hajia Maryam Waziri and the national youth leader, Hon. Stanley Udeh-Okoye amongst others.