Former Nigerian ambassador alleges plot by PDP to scuttle Taraba guber election

By Musa Baba Adamu

Nigeria’s former ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Alhaji Hassan

Jika Ardo, has alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is plotting to destabilize the forthcoming governorship and state House of Assembly elections in Taraba State.

Ardo, who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said the plans to scuttle the election in the state by using Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, officials and security agencies to rig, have been uncovered.

He said this on Sunday during an interactive session with media men in Jalingo, the state capital, urging the electorate to tread extra legitimate miles to halt the plans from seeing the light of day.

Ardo, who doubled as the State Coordinator of the Independent Grassroot Presidential Campaign Council, IGPCC, of Presidentelect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, insisted that extensive interaction with people at the grassroots and other relevant stakeholders shows that the PDP is jittery due to the outcome of the Presidential election.

The PDP, who according to him, is piqued by the general acceptance of the APC in the state, has resolved to use other means to win the election at all costs.

“The scheme is to ensure that election materials arrive very late especially in the hinterlands so that the election will run into the night when they will perform their devilish acts. Another tactic is to make sure that certain sensitive materials do not come to the polling units at all or they will bring fake results sheets and create confusion,” he alleged.

He admonished the electorates not to take the law into their hands but to protect their votes at all costs in line with the laws of the land.

Alhaji Hassan Jika Ardo

By Musa Baba Adamu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun has threatened to occupy police stations across the state unless the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali, does not stop the ongoing arrest of its leaders ahead of the Saturday, March 18, 2023, state House of Assembly election.

The party, which maintained that it is the ruling party in the state and its members are law-abiding citizens, ruled out restoring to self-help but added that if the harassment continued, it would mobilise and storm all police posts in peaceful protests so that all their members in the state would be arrested

This warning was contained in a statement signed by the Osun PDP caretaker chairman, Akindele Adekunle, on Sunday in Osogbo, the state capital.

The statement reads this, “Our leaders are being arrested in a bid to rig Saturday’s election. We will resist any ploy to manipulate the polls. Osun people voted overwhelmingly for PDP in the last polls. They are ready to freely exercise their voting rights again. Arresting our leaders on Kangaroo charges is an attack on democracy and our fundamental human rights.

“We will not resort to selfhelp. We are law-abiding citizens and a ruling party in Osun State. But if this harassment of our members continues, we will mobilize and storm all police posts in Osun state in a peaceful protest. Let the IGP arrest all Osun PDP members.

“We call on the Inspector General of Police to stop serving the evil interest of the APC. The police boss has a sacred duty to be an impartial enforcer of the law, not an agent of one political party against the other. It is unacceptable for the IGP to take directives on who to arrest or detain from APC chieftains. This is a democracy, not a military dictatorship.”

While wondering if winning the election in a free and fair