Atiku signs peace deal on 2019 polls

Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has signed the national peace accord ahead of the 2019 elections.

Atiku signed the accord on Wednesday when he visited the national peace committee alongside PDP officials.

He was not present at the meeting where the accord was formally signed on Tuesday in Abuja.

Paul Ibe, Atiku’s spokesman, had quoted the presidential candidate as saying he was not invited to the meeting where the accord was signed.

The PDP had, however, blamed Atiku’s absence at the programme on “communication lapse”.

Peter Obi, Atiku’s running mate; Uche Secondus, PDP national chairman, were among those who accompanied the former vice-president when he went to sign the accord.

A similar accord signed in the build-up of the 2015 elections contributed to the relatively peaceful conduct of the poll.

Among the commitments contained in the peace deal are:

– To run issue-based campaigns at national, state and local government levels. In, this, we pledge to refrain from campaigns that will involve religious incitements, ethnic or tribal profiling, both by ourselves and by all agents in our names.

– To refrain from making or causing to make in our names and that of our party, any public statements, pronouncements, declarations or speeches that have the capacity to incite any form of violence, before, during and after the elections.

– To support all institutions of government including INEC and the security agencies to act and be seen to act with impartially.

– To forcefully and publicly speak out against provocative utterances and oppose all acts of electoral violence.