APC rejects NSA Sambo’s call to postpone elections

The All Progressives Congress has rejected the call by the National
Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki(retd.), for the postponement of
next month's general elections ostensibly to give INEC more time to
distribute all Permanent Voter Cards.
It warned that "under no circumstance must the elections be scuttled."
In a statement in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the call by Dasuki,
during an event at the Chatham House in London on Thursday, had
"exposed the hitherto clandestine plot by the Goodluck Jonathan's
Administration to push for the postponement of the polls, using all
sorts of cheap tricks."
APC added, "Now that we have found the smoking gun, we are urging the
international community, in particular, to urgently extract a
commitment from President Goodluck Jonathan that the elections will
hold as scheduled next month, and that he would respect the outcome,
just as we have said."
APC said Dasuki was only seeking to buy time for Jonathan's campaign
to gather steam by hinging his postponement call on the delay in PVC
distribution.
"They know for sure that if they don't postpone the elections, there
is no way they can win. They are just terrified," the party said.
It called on Nigerians to reject in its entirety the "ongoing
orchestrated plot" by the Jonathan administration to postpone the
elections, saying the constitutional crisis that would be triggered by
such postponement was capable of undermining the nation's democracy.
APC added, "After realising it will be rejected by Nigerians, who have
borne the brunt of its mis-governance over the years, after realising
that its campaign of calumny against our presidential candidate has
failed, the Jonathan Administration has now started to play its last
card, which is the postponement of the election."
It said the importance of elections could not be over-emphasised.
"Election is the lifeblood of democracy, the mechanism by which modern
representative democracy operates. It is the only way for the
citizenry to renew and refresh the governing process so they can get
the most benefits out of democracy. Therefore, anyone that tries to
sabotage this mechanism is aiming a dagger straight at the heart
ofdemocracy," the party said.

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