Panic Grips PDP Over APC Membership Registration, Says Exercise To Produce 28m Fake Members

APC vs PDPThe ruling Peoples Democratic Party has accused the All Progressives Congress of planning to use the outcome of its ongoing nationwide membership registration exercise to hype what it termed a phantom public support.

The PDP alleged that with the targeted 28 million membership figures the opposition party plans to realize at the end of the registration exercise, it would resort to violence at the end of the 2015 presidential elections when it fails to record a total voters’ figure that tallies with its perceived membership strength.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, who stated this at a news briefing in Abuja on Friday, however, noted that the party was not afraid of APC membership registration across the country.

The party also flayed the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for maintaining silence over the use of its designated centers for election by the APC for the ongoing registration exercise.

PDP said, “Indeed we find it shocking and curious that INEC whose responsibility is to safeguard against this sort of aberration has not only kept mum as the APC fraudulently uses its name for this infamous agenda but has folded hands in the face of this abuse and illegal conversion of its  property”.

According to Metuh, “Our great party has received reports from various states, calling our attention to an on-going, well planned clandestine move by the All Progressives Congress, APC, to lay mines in the way of a successful conduct of 2015 general elections, using its nationwide membership registration as a ruse. It is very unfortunate that while the PDP led federal government is solidifying the foundation of a credible electoral system it has already laid, and INEC is yet to release the final details of the 2015 general elections timetable, which is still a year ahead, the APC is already introducing weird inventions, calculated to torpedo the process and blow sky-high, the huge expectations of Nigerians and the international community.

“We are all aware that the APC is currently conducting a nationwide registration of its members. The Peoples Democratic Party whole heartedly welcomes this development as it tallies with our avowed commitment to political plurality and the freeing of the democratic space so as to enable every Nigerian find expression on whatever political platform that he or she so wishes.

“This is because we firmly believe in competitive democracy as an antidote to mediocrity and complacency. That informed the choice, the resolve and the commitment of the PDP led Federal Government to the rule of law, due process, freedom of information and the non-negotiability of free, fair and credible elections.

“However, it is clear from the statements, actions and the activities of the leaders of the APC, that the opposition has only been changing names without changing its character. Their commitment to being a credible alternative leaves a yawning gap in the face of its furious self-willed handicap to genuinely contribute in building the fabrics of our democracy.

“Our investigations revealed that part of the plot by the APC is use to this fraudulent membership registration exercise to hype a phantom public support after which it will declare a particular bogus figure and create a false impression of massive public followership ahead of the 2015 general elections.

“We wish to alert Nigerians therefore to the incontrovertible evidence at our disposal to the effect that the APC is sadly and currently using every foul means at its disposal to build a particular membership figure, running into tens of millions, which it intends to use as a justification to fault, dispute, reject and subsequently take to violence when it loses the 2015 general elections.

“This fraudulent membership figure, meant to create an unexisting mass followership is to be maniacally presented, projected and defended by the APC, using its well-known unethically hypodermic propaganda tools as an anticipated real voter strength, below which it will carry out its threat to unleash mayhem on the nation as contained in its allegory of ‘the monkey, the baboon and blood’”.

When contacted, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, absolved the electoral umpire of any blame in the use of designated election centers for registration of members by APC, noting that “the places cited by the PDP are public places which INEC does not have control over”.