Violent Ward Congresses: PDP Blasts APC

Nigeria’s ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has slammed the country’s main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, for the massive incidences of violence recorded during its ward congresses across the country over the weekend.

In a statement signed on Monday by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, the PDP described the exercise as a disgrace to democracy.

“It is an irony that a party that daily claims it is on a
mission to rescue Nigeria could not even conduct its own
congress,” part of the statement chided.

“The savagery witnessed in the exercise which came eight months after the registration of the party, offers a glimpse into the confusion and brutality that will be the order of the day if the APC is allowed to hold power in 2015, the PDP submitted, noting that, “a passerby would have thought the so called APC congress was a meeting of thugs as detailed hooligans took over the process on the directives of their party overlords and dealt harshly with members who dared to contest for positions already appropriated to handpicked stooges of the owners of the party. From Lagos to Borno, Rivers to Zamfara, the story is consistently the same; a tale of cronyism, thuggery, violence and general disregard for the principles of democracy.”

The PDP further said that, “not only did those from the old ACN emasculate their so-called partners, but also they did so in the most uncivilised and barbaric manner, deploying thugs, and using official state apparatus to ensure that they had their way.

“In states where the owners of the party felt they could not have their way, the process was manipulated to create confusion resulting in the shelving of the exercise.

“For instance, while the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, was announcing that the congress would go on nationwide as planned, the APC chairmen in Rivers, Plateau, Bauchi and the FCT announced the postponement of the exercise in their state.

“These are the ‘progressives’ and ‘democrats’ that want to rescue Nigeria.

“This is the same party that called the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, names and asked for the resignation of its board over the conduct of the Anambra elections due to slight hitches experienced in that exercise. Will the APC now be honourable enough to call for its own disbandment seeing as they have experienced not slight, but massive hitches in their own congress? If the APC cannot manage its own internal affairs, how can it manage a country as complex as Nigeria?” the PDP mocked.

“We know the history of this party and the pedigree of its leaders will hardly yield to democracy, but we are confident our assistance is handy here,” the ruling offered.