From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to save its members from attacks, in the run-up to the 2023 general elections. The PCC Director of Strategic Communications, Dele Momodu, made the appeal at a press briefing on Friday in Abuja. He said the APC contested the 2015 presidential without being attacked or harassed by the PDP, which was the ruling party then.
Momodu, who recalled that the opposition party’s campaigns have been attacked in several places, noted that the PDP was not allowed to mount its billboards or use public broadcast stations in APC controlled states..
“So, I wish to appeal through you to the federal government, since they control the APC, that this is not what democracy is all about. I was one of those who fought and suffered for this democracy. We never envisaged that in the civilian regime, we are going to have this kind of harassment, whereby we cannot practice democracy as it should be done.
“In 2014 2015, I was one of those who supported Buhari, and there was never a time that PDP disturbed us, because if they had disturbed us, may be there would have been no Buhari. So, we are hoping that Mr President would help us speak to the security agencies, to protect the lives of our people, to protect our property wherever they are on the soil of Nigeria, because we are all Nigerians.”
The party has also berated the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, over his comments urging his supporters to grab power and run in the 2023 polls. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, while speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, on Friday, said Tinubu’s charge to his supporters, after his appearance at the Chatham House, was tantamount to inciting violence ahead of the 2023 polls.
Ologunagba recalled that in 2015, those who did not vote for the APC would drown in the Lagoon. He noted that the threat was taken a notch higher in the 2019 polls.