The PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation (PPCO) has kicked against the Nigerian Army’s announcement that it would soon commence the Operation Python Dance III across the nation.
The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, who announced this at a news conference on Friday in Maiduguri, disclosed that the exercise would be conducted from January 1 to February 28, 2019.
Buratai, who was represented by the Chief of Training and Operations, Maj.-Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, said that the operation would help tackle already “observed upsurge’’ in security challenges as the 2019 general elections draw nearer.
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However, the PPCO described the operation as a ploy by President Muhammadu Buhari to rig the election by using the military to intimidate and harass its supporters during the 2019 presidential election.
The presidential election is scheduled for February 16, 2019, which falls within the operational timeline.
According to a statement by its Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PPCO said the Buhari presidency was planning to foist a “siege mentality” ahead of the polls.
The statement read in full:
The PDP Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) alerts that President Muhammadu Buhari is plotting to use the planned nationwide military ‘Operation Python Dance’ to legitimize his administration’s ploy of using the military to intimidate voters and rig the 2019 Presidential election, having realized he cannot win in a free and fair poll.
This plot is in consonant with the desperation of the Buhari Presidency to foist a siege mentality on the nation ahead of the 2019 general elections, harass voters and create a sense of escalated insecurity, so as to stalemate the electoral process, once it becomes clearer that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was losing.
Our investigation shows that part of the plot is to use the military operation as a subterfuge to unleash heavy security presence to intimidate, harass and instil fear in voters in PDP strongholds across the country and pave the way for the allocation of fictitious votes to President Buhari and the APC.
Further investigation reveals that agents of the Buhari Presidency are working in cahoot with some compromised top officials of the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to use soldiers to provide cover for diversion of electoral materials, as well as aid APC agents in their plan to unleash violence and disrupt the electoral process in areas where the PDP is winning.
In spanning the military operation to February 28, 2019, the Buhari Presidency betrayed its anticipation of public rejection or violence, which can only come when a result that does not reflect the actual wish of the people is announced.
Everybody in Nigeria and world over, including the Buhari’s Presidency, know the direction the 2019 presidential election tide is flowing and that Nigerians are eager for a new President, having lost confidence in President Buhari, due to his failures in governance.
The PPCO, therefore, rejects this deliberate attempt by the Buhari Presidency to set our military on collision course with Nigerians, bearing in mind the collateral damage that usually occurs whenever the civilian population clashes with military.
Our nation is a democratic state and we are not in a state of emergency that requires the militarization of our electoral process.
Our military, which is cherished by Nigerians, should therefore foreclose any attempt by the Buhari Presidency to use it to set our country on fire.
All that Nigerians desire at this point is to go to the polls and peacefully elect a new President to reposition our nation and not another round of electoral crisis.
Moreover, the only threat to peaceful election today is the Buhari Presidency, which has been overheating the polity with its official high handedness, clamp down on opposition and desperation to rig the polls.
Finally, if the authorities believe that military steps are genuinely required to ensure peaceful poll in any part of the country, they should recourse to the constitutional approval of the National Assembly and not making impositions as if our nation is under a military regime.
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