The All Progressives Congress, which is currently in power, is allegedly planning to rig the general elections in 2023, according to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has made a request to the UN to stop it.
When he welcomed a group of special representatives of the UN Secretary-General, led by the director of the UN Office in West Africa and the Sahel Region (UNOWAS), Ahmad Annadif, on Tuesday in Abuja, the party’s acting chairman, Umar Damagum, made the appeal.
The elections in Nigeria in 2023 are significant to the UN and the world community, according to Damagum, the PDP’s deputy national chairman (North).
He begged the UN to caution INEC to make sure the polls were transparent and credible.
“We need your support to ensure that INEC is truly an election umpire. There are a lot of reforms that have taken place which will be put to test in this coming elections. We hope with the signing of the new Electoral Act, those reforms will alleviate some of our fears in the coming elections,” he said.
Damagum continued by saying that the nation could not afford any kind of electoral violence and expressed the hope that, if the APC did not win the general elections in 2023, it would follow in the footsteps of the PDP and concede defeat and peacefully cede power.
“We hope they will continue to see Nigeria as one of the uniting factors on the continent, so that we continue to lead by example. We have been doing so since the coming of democracy in 1999 and we will continue to do so,” stated the PDP chieftain. “We will continue to do our part as opposition party.
“You also have to continue to do your part to ensure that things are done rightly. You can do that in advisory form or any other form in which you have been doing it.”
Taofeek Arapaja, the PDP’s deputy national chairman for the south, also spoke at the meeting and urged the UN to take action against anyone trying to sabotage the elections in 2023.
He pleaded on the UN to take seriously the issues of vote-buying and the behaviour of security personnel during elections.
Vote-buying, according to Arapaja, was a defining feature of the recently completed governorship race in Ekiti.
“A situation where people cannot change the situation they do not like is what we do not want,” stressed Mr Arapaga.
