Frontline presidential candidate, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has accused the two dominant parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of playing politics with Nigeria’s stability through the way and manner they are handling the Electoral Act.
The candidate running on the platform of the People’s Trust (PT) and regarded as a third force in the build-up to the February 2019 presidential elections, stressed that rather than presenting themselves as statesmen, the candidates are rather obsessed with immediate partisan gains.
He told journalists at an interactive session in Lagos while reacting to the president’s refusal to give accent to the Electoral Act, which he said was passed by the PDP- controlled National Assembly.
Olawepo-Hashim stated: “The president is conducting himself like a typical Nigerian politician of the era of political decline, rather than behaving as a patriot that I have always thought he is. By his actions, he is simply saying let me benefit from the fraudulent process for my 2019 bid. You can push for the new law in 2023 when I will not be contesting.”
The prominent politician, who is believed to be flying the flag of the young and the active, noted that the PDP-led legislature had ample time to correct the perceived lacunas in the Electoral Act, which they had created in the first instance.
He continued: “In the task of nation building, political leaders sometimes have to rise above the fray and take decisions in the national interest, even when they do not seem to benefit from it. Some of us did this before. In 2000, when some of our colleagues wanted to change our two- year tenure to four years, I led the opposition to this, even though I would have been a beneficiary of that exercise as a National Executive Committee (NEC) member”
The PT presidential candidate called on the electorate and the entire citizens of Nigeria not to be discouraged from participating in the next polls as a result of the shenanigans of APC and PDP.
He regretted that since what he called the “garrison” election in Osun State and the unfortunate decline of assent to the Electoral Act, the APC has been trying to spread fear in the hearts of would-be voters that their votes will not count.
