Nigeria: Opposition party threatens to pull out of peace accord

Nigeria: Opposition party threatens to pull out of peace accord

Following threats and incendiary utterances by members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency towards the forth-coming election, opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said it will pull out peace accord.

All major parties and candidates were made to sign a peace accord which is binding on all parties to conduct themselves peaceful during and after the elections.

Also read: Nigeria: ‘body bags’ threats for foreigners who ‘interfere’ in elections

Both the PDP and APC as well as other political parties and their candidates signed the treaty.

But citing APC actions, the PDP on Wednesday threatened to pull out of in the national peace accord a few days to the presidential election.

“Any situation that seeks to allow the APC to abuse the tenets of the accord will definitely force our party to review our signatory to the peace process,” PDP spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement.

The 2019 peace accord, convened by a former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, was to commit the political parties and candidates to a peaceful poll.

Nigeria goes to poll on February 16 with the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) facing a stiff challenge from Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

Ologbondiyan said the party is considering to pull out of the peace accord because of the “threats and incendiary actions by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency”.

This is coming in the wake of the death threat issued by Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, a member of the APC, to any foreign power that tries to intervene in the forthcoming elections.

El-Rufai Tuesday on NTA’s Tuesday Live programme threatened that Nigerian forces will kill foreign soldiers who intervene in the country’s election matters.

“Those that are calling for anyone to come and intervene in Nigeria, we are waiting for the person that would come and intervene, they would go back in body bags,” the governor said.

While condemning the governor’s comment PDP said: “We call on the international community to immediately impose a travel ban on el-Rufai for this inciting comment against peaceful elections in our country.”

“We therefore call on the National Peace Committee to immediately summon El-Rufai on his inflammatory remarks against peaceful election in our country,” PDP added.

A similar comment was also shared by a presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, in January who said as much as Nigeria welcomes interests and partnerships for free and fair polls, the government would not condone unfair interference in the country’s internal affairs.

Shehu was responding to statements issued by the U.S., UK and EU diplomatic mission condemning the suspension of Chief Justice Onnoghen.

The missions said Onnoghen’s suspension could affect the general election and its aftermath.