By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said that the resort by leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to harassment and threatening of Nigerians, particularly civil servants in Kano state, to register as its members in the ongoing party’s registration exerercise , against their will, further exposed the level of public rejection that is now confronting the party.
The PDP in a statement in Sunday by its Spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, described the situation as “political terrorism, symptomatic of a dying party gasping for breath,” adding that Nigerians have rejected the APC and will never be intimidated by such threats.
He said, “one can only pity APC leaders over the crushing public apathy against their fraudulent membership registration exercise, for which their Kano state Chairman, Abdulahi Abbas, out of frustration, threatened civil servants and other innocent Nigerians in the state, to join their dying party or lose all benefits and opportunities from the state government.
“It is appalling that after being exposed in their scheme of hiding under their duplicitous membership revalidation and re-registration exercise to inflate their membership register with fictitious figures, the APC leaders are now shamelessly resorting to harassing innocent civil servants and their families to register in the party, against their will.
“The fact that the APC has been reduced to a situation where it is rather forcing and coercing Nigerians in their supposed strongholds of Kano, Kaduna and Katsina state, who ordinarily should be trooping out enmasse to register, only goes to show that the APC is already dead in their consciousness, having betrayed them in the last six years”.
PDP called on Nigerians to disregard any membership figures that will be eventually released by the APC as that would only be a product of inflated numbers made up of fictitious names and forced registration.
The party condemned the threat issued by the APC as completely unconstitutional, subversive and a criminal act of political banditry.
“The APC leaders also need be made aware that such threats constitute a provocative assault on the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the citizens and this is capable of triggering a serious social unrest with the propensity of derailing our nation’s democracy” the party stated.
