The Presidency has debunked allegations by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, that President Bola Tinubu has concluded plans to impose a one-party state on Nigerians.
Atiku had alleged that Tinubu appointed his loyalists as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), saying this “is how the APC plans to impose a one-party state on Nigerians”.
Reacting to the allegations, the Presidency, in a statement issued on Monday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, noted that Tinubu did not silence the opposition parties in the country, saying Atiku’s claims were malicious.
Describing the president as a democrat, Onanuga said Atiku’s allegations were deliberately aimed at heating up the polity and causing disenchantment in the country.
He stated: “President Tinubu is a democrat to the core. We make bold to say that as president, he has not interfered with the judgment of the judiciary. We had witnessed how under his watch the PDP governor in Osun defeated the APC at the Supreme Court.
“Similarly, the PDP Governor in Bauchi also won his case in the Appeal Court, beating the APC.
“President Tinubu is also not planning to impose a one-party state as Atiku has serially alleged and his party and spokesman have now parroted.
“These allegations are deliberately aimed at unnecessarily heating up the polity and causing disenchantment in our country.
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“They exist only in the imagination of the PDP and the former vice president.
“Unlike Atiku Abubakar, President Tinubu’s record as a democrat par excellence and a strong advocate of the rule of law have been globally acknowledged.
“His record of service as governor, which witnessed giant strides in various facets of the state, was responsible for the dominance of his political structure in Lagos and not by any undemocratic conduct, as Atiku Abubakar wants the public to believe.
“While Atiku and PDP are now crying wolf over the Appeal Court rulings on governorship polls in Plateau, Zamfara, and Nasarawa States, we hasten to ask the former Vice President where he was in 2019 when the court ruled against All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State. The court then awarded all the positions won by the APC to PDP.
“Where was Atiku also in 2019 when in Rivers State, the court stopped APC from fielding any candidate in both the Governorship and House of Assembly elections?
“Where was Atiku and the PDP in 2019, when on the eve of the swearing-in of Bayelsa governor-elect, David Lyon, the Supreme Court handed the victory of the APC to the candidate of the PDP, Governor Diri who was earlier rejected at the poll by the people of Bayelsa?
“Atiku and PDP then savoured all these court-handed trophies as sweet victories for PDP and celebrated the courts as protectors of democracy.
“Now that the same courts are annulling PDP victories, based on the blatant violations of the law by the lawless party, the party is mudslinging the judiciary and President Tinubu.”
Onanuga, however, urged Atiku and the PDP to stop the “campaign of calumny and blackmail against the judiciary and the honourable judges and justices”, adding that judgements are based on law and evidence.
“In election petition cases, they are based on the Electoral Act and the Constitution, not on sentiments and emotions,” he stressed.
