The All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign council has reacted
to the postponement of elections by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC).
INEC, in a statement signed by the Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu made the announcement in the early hours of Saturday, February 16, 2019.
Festus Keyamo, the spokesperson of the APC campaign council condemned the postponement.
Keyamo also called on supporters of President Buhari to be patient and determined.
Read the full statement below:
We have just received with great
disappointment and disillusionment the announcement by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) of its decision to postpone the
Presidential/National Assembly and Gubernatorial/House of Assembly
Elections to Saturday, February 23, 2019 and Saturday, March 9, 2019,
respectively.
We condemn and deprecate this tardiness of the
electoral umpire in the strongest terms possible. President Muhammadu
Buhari had since cooperated fully with INEC by ensuring EVERYTHING it
demanded to conduct free and fair elections were promptly made available
to it. This news is therefore a huge disappointment to us and to our
teeming supporters nationwide and around the world, many of whom have
come into the country to exercise their franchise.
We
do hope that INEC will remain neutral and impartial in this process as
the rumor mill is agog with the suggestion that this postponement has
been orchestrated in collusion with the main opposition, the PDP, that
was NEVER ready for this election. We note that all the major credible
demographic projections have predicted a defeat of the PDP and it
seriously needed this breather to orchestrate more devious strategies to
try and halt President Buhari’s momentum. It did the same as the ruling
Party in 2015, when it realized the game was up, by orchestrating the
postponement of the 2015 elections by six weeks. Now, it may be up to
its old trick again.
We have earlier raised the alarm that the PDP
is bent on discrediting this process the moment it realized it cannot
make up the numbers to win this election. We are only urging INEC not
collude with the PDP on this. We are truly worried because as early as
Friday morning, some known PDP Social Media influencers unwittingly
announced this postponement, but quickly deleted the message and
apologized to the public that it was fake news. We do not want to be
forced to a situation of announcing our total loss of confidence in
INEC, because we know where that would leave our democracy.
It is in the light of the above that we wish
to appeal to Nigerians and our supporters to be patient, calm and
resolute despite this temporary setback. Let us not give anyone,
especially the PDP, the opportunity to plunge this nation into a crises,
which is what they earnestly desire. Its imminent defeat is just a few
days away.
Lastly, we wish to draw the attention of INEC
and the world to observe that the PDP has clearly and openly said it
plans to announce parallel results through some funny device it has
procured or developed. We wish to re-iterate that it is ONLY INEC that
is legally and constitutionally empowered to declare results and it
constitutes an offence for anyone to do so. We urge INEC to SPEAK UP NOW
and warn the PDP to desist from this ignoble act that is capable of
plunging the nation into a crises of immeasurable proportions.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the postponement of the elections and also called for the resignation of INEC’s boss, Mahmood Yakubu.
