By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, has declared that the 2023 general election in Nigeria will be of much important to the world at laege
The envoy, who stated this when she paid a courtesy visit to the National Chairman of the opposition Peoples democratic Pary (PDP) at the party’s national headquarters in Abuja, said her country and indeed other countries of the world would be watching to see how the election would be conducted, adding that the outcome of the polls would matter a lot to the entire world
The envoy noted that she was at the PDP with her team to find out how prepared the party is ahead of the next election and its plans to reactivate the interest of the electorate especially the youths in the electoral process.
“We are here to hear from His Excellency your plans and what you as a major party can do to ensure that the election is secure and that young people in particular turn up to vote.
“So the world will be watching this election, and hoping it goes well. So it matters, obviously, for the people of Nigeria, it matters for Africa, and it matters for the world. You’re one of the largest democracies globally. And we want you to stay as part of that global community. That’s a very important objective for our government to talk about building a network of liberty likeminded countries and also a democratic Global Alliance. That’s our hope and aspiration for Nigeria”.
Welcoming the envoy, national Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Iyorchia Ayu, told the British High Commissioner to insist that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) play by the rules during the 2023 general election.
The opposition party boss explained that the PDP had in 2015 insisted that the right thing must be done and when it lost the election, the party accepted its fate and thereby joined democratic institution to rebuilt the people’s confidence on the electoral process..
“We led in building democratic institutions that exist today. We also continued to win elections because of popular support that we receive across the country, including international community that came to support what we were doing.
“Along the line, in a commitment to democracy, we had an election which we lost, we accepted defeat because of our deep belief in the democratic process. So we’re not happy to be in opposition for the last six years. No party wants to be in opposition. We have been working very hard to rebuild the party to make sure that Nigerians have confidence in us as a party. I want to say that the signs are there that Nigerians believe that we are the only organic party in this country” the party chairman boasted.
“I want to assure you that we will not deviate from the democratic journey and we expect all other parties in this country to also try as much as to uphold the tenants of democracy which is free and fair elections.
“We expect all institutions including the Independent National Electoral Commission to carry out their work without bias against us as major opposition party.
“What we want to see from friends of Nigeria is to support and encourage everybody to play by the rules so that even if we lose, we accept that we’ll have lost. But we want everybody to play by the rules because in the past, we had had serious reservation about the performance of the umpire institutions.”
The party boss told his guests that the opposition is determined to take over power so as to rebuild the economy, return Nigeria to a debt free nation, facilitate direct foreign investment rebuild democratic institutions.
