APC rejects call to postpone elections

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the call by the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, for the postponement of next month's general elections ostensibly to give the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) more time to distribute all Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), warning that under no circumstance must the elections be scuttled.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the call by Col.\ Dasuki, during an event at the Chatham House in London yesterday, has exposed the hitherto clandestine plot by the Jonathan administration to push for the postponement of the polls, using all sorts of cheap tricks.

'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,' it said.

APC said Col. Dasuki was only seeking to buy time for Jonathan campaign to gather steam by hinging his postponement call on the delay in PVC distribution, adding: '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 also 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.

'After realising that 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.

APC said the importance of elections cannot be over-emphasised, adding: '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 to the heart of democracy.'