PDP, Jonathan plan to manipulate elections, implicate opposition leaders –APC

All Progressives Con­gress (APC) has again raised the alarm that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jona­than’s administration have hatched several plans to manipulate the general elec­tions.
Addressing a press confer­ence in Lagos yesterday, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mo­hammed, said the alleged plans included implicating some leaders of the APC with a view to getting them out of circulation before the election as well as crediting professor Attahiru Jega’s bank account with a huge sum of money to indict some APC leaders.
The party regretted that “while we in the APC, and definitely most Nigerians 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 to hold.”
According to Mohammed, PDP and Jonathan’s attitude was that “even if the elections must hold at all, they must be held on their own terms, which is with no PVCs, no card read­ers, no Jega, and the military must be deployed to intimi­date voters.”
He claimed, “this admin­istration knows it can never win in a free, fair and cred­ible election because of its appalling record in office, so, it has hatched some evil plots to deny the people of Nigeria their right to vote for change.”
Mohammed alleged: “There is a plot to transfer a humongous amount of money into the bank account of the INEC Chairman, Prof. Atta­hiru Jega, and then claim that the money came from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC in order to justify the on­going plan to sack Prof. Jega, so, he won’t organise the elec­tions.
“Beyond Jega, 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.
“There is 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.
“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.
“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.
“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 reader is 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.”
The party said it decided to share the information it alleg­edly received with Nigerians because of its belief that no power was strong enough to stop people who were deter­mined to effect change, since ultimate power resided in the people.