Democracy Day: Take steps to guarantee credible elections in 2023, PDP tells Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to put measures in place towards ensuring that credible elections are conducted in 2023.

The opposition party said this on Sunday in a statement issued by Debo Ologunagba, its spokesperson, to mark Nigeria’s Democracy Day.

Ologunagba said credible election is the hallmark of Nigeria’s Democracy Day celebration, adding that Buhari should take steps to guarantee free, fair and transparent elections before he leaves office.

The PDP asked Nigerians to “use the occasion of the June 12 Democracy Day to reaffirm their determination to vote out the anti-democratic, inhumane, lawless and rudderless All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 general elections”.

“The Party also calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to go beyond his usual rhetoric and take practical steps to guarantee the conduct of free, fair and transparent elections in 2023,” the statement reads.

“The PDP reminds President Buhari that Nigerians are now, more than ever before, determined to fully entrench the democratic demands of credible elections, which is at the core of the Democracy Day celebration.

“June 12 embodies the struggle by Nigerians against corrupt, suppressive and dictatorial forces; against lawless, insensitive, anti-people and terrorism-promoting regime, against injustice, high-handedness, recklessness and incurable impunity, all which the APC has come to represent.    

“It is unpardonable that the APC administration has arrogantly continued to violate and trample on the substance, value and quintessence of June 12 Democracy Day; the democratic principles of constitutional order, freedom, justice, fairness and equity as well as the much-desired national cohesion and tolerance which Chief MKO Abiola personified and died for.

“Our Party cautions the APC to stop testing the will of Nigerians with its continued abuse of process, violation of human rights, nepotism, electoral manipulations, stifling of freedom of speech, promotion of violence; the very pattern of the dark era of military dictatorship in our country, which Chief MKO Abiola fought against.

“The PDP demands that President Buhari should take steps to check the use of security agencies and thugs to suppress voters in addition to guaranteeing that only votes cast at the polling units are transmitted and declared.

“President Buhari by now should know that Nigerians have rejected his party, the APC and that the outcome of the 2023 general elections must not speak otherwise.”

The opposition party also advised leaders across the country to “reflect on the essence of June 12 in all their activities to build a nation guided by the democratic principles of the rule of law, mutual respect and unity of purpose”.