President Goodluck Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign team yesterday asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to disqualify his main rival Muhammadu Buhari from participating in the April 9 presidential election over alleged violence by supporters of the Congress for Progressive Change.
Buhari’s supporters were reported to have ransacked a campaign office and pulled down billboards of the ruling People’s Democratic Party in Gombe last week. Earlier on, anti-Jonathan protests were also held in other places though it was not clear if the protesters were Buhari’s supporters or CPC members.
The Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Council in a statement yesterday in Abuja called on INEC and the security agencies “to invoke the relevant sections of the law and disqualify Buhari and his violent supporters from the 2011 elections.”
Director of research and strategy of the campaign council Mike Omeri said in the statement: “The violence unleashed on People’s Democratic Party (PDP) supporters in Sokoto, Kaduna, Kano, Nasarawa, Port Harcourt and Gombe by the CPC are ploys capable of truncating the democratic project Nigerians have laboured for over the years.”
He said the way the CPC supporters have been behaving during the campaign “is not how democracy should be practiced, violence or threat is not part of democracy. I think those who have no democratic credentials should have no business in this game.
“By now, Nigerians should know those who are the real enemies of democracy and the people. This is not the era of brute force. Nigerians must have a choice and a right to decide. This resort to violence and intimidation cannot win votes for them.”
Omeri alleged that some CPC supporters have threatened to kill him. “In the last five days, I have been inundated with strange phone calls and text messages threatening me not to speak or comment on anything involving General Buhari. One of the text messages came from phone number +2348035074163 warning ‘Mike you should think twice before you either write or say something on Buhari.’”
Two weeks ago, Omeri had accused General Buhari of involvement in the blast at a PDP rally in Suleja, Niger State, but he later retracted the accusations.
But Buhari’s campaign group yesterday denied inciting anyone to violence and dismissed the calls for his disqualification.
Spokesman for the CPC presidential candidate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said Buhari has only been asking Nigerians to vote and ensure that their votes were counted.
“All Buhari has been harping on is for the people to guard their votes and make sure that they are not tampered with. He is also calling on the security agencies to be fair and impartial in their jobs,” Odumakin said.
Also yesterday, another group affiliated to the Goodluck-Sambo campaign team, True Democracy Advocacy Network, called for the disqualification of the CPC and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) presidential candidate Nuhu Ribadu.
In a statement by its executive secretary David Onilede, the group said, “The same violent tone has been adopted by the ACN team of NuhuRibadu and Fola Adeola ably complimented by the rampaging rhetorics of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. All have been unrepentantly preaching violence against the PDP apparatus and people.
“We hereby call on the INEC to disqualify Buhari and every other candidate guilty of inciting people to violence immediately. The provision of the recently signed Code of Conduct for Political Parties and their candidates is in full support of such a sanction. There should be no room for enemies of democracy.”
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