At a separate press conference yesterday in Abuja,the national chairman of the PDP,Prince Uche Secondus dismissed suggestions that the party had reached a deal with the Abdulsalami committee to call off its planned legal action on the presidential election.
He said: “When they came, they met with us and they requested us to please state our grievances. There was no condition.
“Initially, we were not to talk with them because a decision had been taken to go to court. But because of the personalities involved, we said ok, let’s just talk.
“There were no conditions and there was no request of any condition. We made it clear that unless the injustices are addressed, there is no room for peace. It is only when you address the injustice that you can now sit down for peace.
“So, whatever interpretation that was done by anybody, let it be clear to everybody that we did not give conditions, they did not request for conditions.
“It was like, look, state what really happened in the election and we told them how the military took over the election and conducted the election in favour of the APC with INEC collusion.”
The party chair deplored what he described as voters suppression in states considered the strongholds of the PDP, alleging that soldiers were deployed to harass, intimidate and arrest voters and party supporters in such states,
He listed Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, and Cross Rivers as the worst affected states in the alleged military siege, adding that the threat by the Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State n during the election.
Secondus said: “ at the last count, over 50 Nigerians lost their lives last Saturday, most of them from the South South region where a division of the army with their commander were turned on the people on the election day.”
The party chair queried the higher voter turnout in insurgency ravaged states like Borno and Yobe above the 2015 figures, whereas, states like Rivers and others in the South south zone recorded lower voter turnout in the last election than they did in 2015.
He said: “the clear effect of militarizing the election, particularly in the South South and South East in addition to the killing of innocent electorate, was the obvious suppression of voters who were either scared out or chased away.
“Even by INEC own record, voter turnout in last Saturday’s election fell to about 36 percent from 44 percent that it was in 2015. The military were dragged into the election to suppress and scare away voters and facilitate rigging.
“That is how you hear ridiculously that war torn Borno and Yobe states recorded higher percentage in voter turnout than some states in the South South geo- political zone.
“They have again started mobilizing to use the same military to forcefully take over for APC two PDP states in the South South and one state in the South East.
“Credible intelligence available to the party showed that the ruling party’s main link in INEC met with the APC leadership as well as the military to review the planned strategy to take over these states.
“While the military was suppressing voters in PDP strong hold areas in the South, a different abracadabra was going on in some northern states, particularly in Kano, Yobe, Borno and Zamfara where numbers refuse to add up.
“In Borno, Yobe and Zamfara states, confirmed reports showed that there was non compliance in the use of Smart Card Readers as approved by INEC rules. The backend Report from the card readers for the various local government areas in these states.
“In these states as in others, the data is inconsistent with the accreditation of registered voters in the local government areas and voting patterns witnessed in 2015.
