The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has alerted its compatriots and the international community to the real and present danger posed to Nigeria’s democracy by the desperation of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to retain power at all cost, judging by the party’s glaring involvement in the ongoing efforts to sabotage the merger of the progressives.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it is therefore calling on all lovers of democracy within and outside Nigeria to join in the efforts to stop the PDP and its cohorts from truncating the nation’s democracy.
”Having misgoverned Nigeria since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999, the PDP – realizing that its time is up – has now resorted to a dangerous game aimed at either keeping the party in power at all costs or crashing the country’s democracy. This is a dangerous game that must be stopped, with the good people of Nigeria, not just the progressives, leading the charge,” it said.
ACN described the events of the past few weeks – during which the PDP (undoubtedly backed by the presidency which is providing the financial muscle from its slush funds) is using some of its members who are known for doing the dirty jobs to scuttle the registration of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) – as a throwback to 1993, when the then military junta supported the so-called Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) to scuttle that year’s presidential elections.
The party recalled that the dirty game started by the ABN snowballed into a series of cataclysmic events that culminated in the annulment of what is still widely regarded at the best elections in the country, as well as the ascension into office of a man regarded as the most brutal dictator in the country’s history.
”What started as a mere game of political desperation in 1993 was to set Nigeria back by many decades, and the country is still reeling from the effects of that single act of high treason, sabotage and subterfuge. Sadly, 20 years on, it now seems that our country has learnt no lessons from what the ABN did, as we are back to another desperate times, with the PDP sponsoring some scumbags to stifle the growth of the country’s democracy,” it said.
ACN said there is no doubt, going by the revelations in recent times on the efforts to scuttle the registration of the real APC and the reaction of Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, that the PDP has finally driven the final nail its own coffin.
”The revelations have been mind-boggling: A well-known PDP hatchet man and a card-carrying member of the party hired the apparently-naive lawyer who filed the phantom APC’s registration request at INEC; An apparent card-carrying member of the PDP working in INEC is the internal contact of the saboteurs; The email addresses used by the phantom APC were culled from that of PDP’s publicity office, while the scallywags who have now donned the garb of ABN (under the African Peoples Congress) made sure to copy their emails to their masters at the PDP!
”Equally mind-boggling is how the phantom APC, backed by its contact person in INEC, short-circuited the process of seeking registration by using computer-generated forms and fake signatures, among others.
”Ironically, in seeking to stop the All Progressives’ Congress, the PDP has now shot itself in the foot, as discerning Nigerians do not believe in its denials of any linkage with the so-called African Peoples Congress. An official of the PDP, employing warped logic at its crudest, even had the temerity to insult Nigerians by suggesting that the opposition may be the one engineering the registration crisis to gain popularity! In any case, what is now happening to the PDP will speed its demise, and that is what happens when desperation clouds the sense of reasoning,” the party said.
ACN assures that no amount of underhand tactics will stop the merger of the progressives, who are even stronger now as they have received an overwhelming support and encouragement of Nigerians in the wake of the PDP-orchestrated registration gate.
”But we call on all our supporters and indeed all Nigerians to remain vigilant in the days ahead, as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” it said.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed National Publicity Secretary Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Lagos, Nigeria March 17th 2013
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