APC, PDP at Each Other’s Throats over Manipulation of Election Results

Two days after Nigerians trooped out en masse to polling stations to vote in the presidential and National Assembly elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) flew at each other’s throats on Sunday, with the ruling PDP calling on the public to disregard the misleading results being circulated by the APC in the social media as official results of the presidential and National Assembly polls.

But in a swift response, the APC has warned against any attempt to tamper with the results of the elections, saying Nigerians voted peacefully and massively and know whom they voted for.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement, said the figures were “fake and do not represent the true results, which are currently being collated by INEC, the only body authorised to release and announce results”.
“The APC in its desperation for power has resorted to posting fake results in the social media in a bid to ambush the electoral commission, mislead the unsuspecting public to believe it is winning, all in furtherance of its grand plot to cause confusion and set the stage for violence when the authentic results are finally released.

“We therefore alert Nigerians to be on their guard and close ranks in resisting the APC’s plot to plunge the nation into chaos and anarchy.  Our democracy has come to stay and the will of the people must prevail over and above the parochial ambition of a selfish few.

“Finally, we strongly caution the APC against its acts of desperation and use of dishonest methods, including physical attacks against our members and supporters as these pose a great threat to our democracy, the unity and stability of our dear nation,” the party said.

He further denied the allegation that the PDP was conniving with security chiefs to manipulate the results.

It noted in another statement that “They have forgotten that from the polling
units, the ballots are taken to the ward for collation; from the wards they get to the local government and subsequently to the senatorial zones for further collation before they get to the states, all in the presence of party agents and election observers before they get to the national level for final collation.

“It is an obvious fact that agents of political parties and election observers at every level of the collation have the results as they move from the polling booths. We therefore ask, at what level will the security chiefs get involved as the APC claims?

“Our question is, is it that the APC believes it is losing the elections and as such resorted to crying wolf and seeking to use every means to discredit the process, create tension in the polity and truncate our democracy?

Similarly the spokesman of the PDP campaign organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, in a separate statement, expressed deep concern at the level of misinformation and falsehood that was being peddled around by the friends of the opposition in the media and particularly their paid agents and associates on the social media about the results of Saturday’s elections.

“Since yesterday afternoon they have been releasing fake results and they have been attempting to mislead the Nigerian people and our friends in the international community.

“The public has been inundated with lie after lie about the APC’s so-called victories in virtually every single polling booth, ward, local government area and state in the country. This is not only nonsensical but it is also far-fetched, absurd and childish.

“Two opposition media houses and their associates in the social media went as far as to shamelessly claiming that President Goodluck Jonathan lost in my polling unit and in my ward in Ile-Ife, when in actual fact the president not only won in my polling booth and ward, but also won in virtually every other ward in the four local government areas of Ile Ife in Osun State where I come from,” he said.

Fani-Kayode maintained that the “dirty lies” that these two media houses told were just one example of the gross and irresponsible mendacities and falsehood that the agents and associates of the APC habitually enjoy peddling.

“As we have always said, they are a party of liars that are led and inspired by a small cabalistic cult of shameful deceivers, liars and cheap propaganda merchants. In them there is no truth and lying is their second nature and natural habitat.

“The APC, through their agents in the media, also indulged in many other fanciful and vain mendacities about many other PDP leaders.  For example they claimed that Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, who is presently the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Senator Iyiola Omisore, the leader of our party in Osun State, Governor Olusegun Mimiko, the Governor of Ondo State, Senator David Mark, the Senate President, and so many other of our highly esteemed and respected leaders, also lost their polling units and wards to General Muhammadu Buhari and the APC candidates for the various elections.

“Needless to say these claims by the APC are not only false but they are also absurd and nauseating. Such mendacities are indicative of the fact that they have lost touch with reality, as we have always suspected. As a matter of fact we are surprised that they didn’t claim that the president himself also lost in his polling unit and ward and that he in fact voted for Buhari rather than for himself.

“Such is their level of depravity and deceit that they will manufacture any lie and assert any falsehood just to gain an edge and feed their vain de