Atiku Alleges Plan to Postpone Elections in Borno, Adamawa, Kaduna

The Presidential Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has alleged that there are plans to postpone elections in Borno, Adamawa and Kaduna in a bid to give the ruling All Progressives Congress more time to perfect its alleged rigging plan whenever  elections are held in those three states.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communication, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, the PDP Presidential Candidate warned that failure to hold elections on the same day across the country would be an invitation to rigging, thuggery and violence.

”Anything short of a simultaneous holding of the scheduled elections across the country on Saturday is not acceptable to us,” Atiku said.

He alleged that reports available to the PDP showed that a deal was struck at a closed-door meeting Tuesday between the federal government and the governors of Borno, Adamawa and Kaduna States.

Atiku said this showed the desperation of the APC to ”capture” the states and some others through election postponement.

”The deal, cut at a meeting with some northern governors and service chiefs in the presidential villa in Abuja is simple: The FG will shift election in Northern States of Borno, Adamawa and Kaduna citing security concerns to provide the APC the opportunity to use security agents to massively rig polls in those state at a later date,” the statement said.

Atiku said the implication of the plot was that President Muhammadu Buhari, despite assurances given on free and fair elections, was ready to do anything just to ”capture” Borno, Adamawa, Kaduna and other states using security reasons as a pretext.

The PDP Presidential Candidate however said his party would not lose any sleep over the alleged rigging plan in the three states since the battle to rescue Nigeria from incompetence and bad leadership will be fought by the people themselves.

He said Nigerians were aware that the All Progressives Congress (APC) led federal government its bid to cling on to power and was now resorting to the idea of shifting elections.

Atiku said his persistent demand for a strict adherence to due process and the law, as far as the 2019 general election were concerned, was in the overall interest of Nigerians and the growth of democracy.