The spokesperson for the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has reacted to the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that the presidency was blackmailing its governors to get them to throw their weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 elections.
Keyamo told Vanguard that in making such claims, the PDP was only confirming that its governors are corrupt.
According to the senior lawyer, someone whose hands are clean cannot be blackmailed.
Speaking on the allegation by the PDP that the President’s decision to extend the tenure of the Inspector General of Police, IGP Idris Ibrahim was an attempt to rig the elections, Keyamo said the opposition party was afraid that the APC wants to behave like they did when they were in power.
He said the tendency of the PDP over the years, was to rely heavily on the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to win election.
On the allegation of blackmailing governors, Keyamo said, “Did they tell you what we are using to blackmail them?
“Blackmail means that you have something against somebody and you are using that as a tool to make the person do your bidding.
“Are they confirming that their governors are corrupt? They are doing more damage to themselves than good by making such allegation.
“If they are saying so, they are confirming that their governors are corrupt. A very clean hand will fear no accusation; you cannot blackmail somebody who has not done anything.
“You see, you can only blackmail somebody who has done something. Wike tasks INEC on credible elections in 2019 I am not saying I am confirming or not confirming what they are saying, I am only saying that by making such allegation, they are destroying their party and shooting themselves in the foot.
“It appears that they are throwing in the towel already before the election. By making such allegation, they are telling the world that their governors have deserted them.
“They are confirming that they no longer enjoy the support of their governors because governors are the pillars of a party and governors are supposed to be the most loyal pillars of the party.
“If they are telling the world now, whether the reasons are genuine or not, that they no longer enjoy the support of their governors, I think the honourable thing they should is to throw in the towel before the February 2019 elections.
“We have extreme desperation on the part of the PDP. They are jittery, they are threatened, they are panicky and they are running from pillar to post.
“It appears to us that their campaign has completely collapsed and it is unfortunate that we do not want to run a one-sided campaign.
“As it is now, we have seen that this campaign is one-sided in the sense that Nigerians are mocking the PDP and are no longer taking them serious.
“They have made things too easy for President Buhari to go into this campaign because we are just preaching performance and Nigerians are buying the message.”
Speaking on the extension of IGP’s tenure, he added, “How do you react to that? If you remember in 2015, immediately after the elections, the PDP sacked then IGP.
“This is a party that has no other way to win elections than to use security agencies.
“So, when they are no longer in power as they are now, they think that other people will behave like them.
“The tendency, over the years, was to rely heavily on the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
“So, it is not strange if the PDP had sacked its own IGP, how much more an IGP that was not appointed by them. That is their problem.
“They think others will behave the way they behaved when they were in power.
“The President has complete discretion on the appointment of the heads of security agencies.
“They should wait till whenever Nigerians decide to elect them into power to decide which IGP they should approve or not but, certainly, not in 2019.”
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