By Samuel Ogidan
Abuja
The new opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday raised the alarm over an alleged plot by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to impose a one-party system on the country.
This is even as the party said it would cooperate with President-elect Muhammadu Buhari to foster unity and development in Nigeria.
Addressing journalists yesterday in Abuja on the topic, “Nigeria on the Brink of Dictatorship,” the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, asserted that his party would return to power in the next four years.
“Our nation and its citizens are facing a serious threat. We are at the verge of a quick slide into dictatorship and the personal freedom we all enjoy today is about to be obliterated,” he said.
Metuh said the APC had no clear agenda on how to govern the country, adding, “Rather than concentrate on how to manage the mandate they now hold, they have resorted to seeking ways to stifle opposition and impose a one-party system and complete totalitarian rule in our country.”
He added: “Reports reaching the PDP leadership from across the country show that the APC has been desperately seeking ways to destabilise our ranks and weaken our formations by approaching some senior members of our National Executive Committee (NEC) with phantom promises and threats, ostensibly to use them to inject crisis in our fold and pave way for our elected members to cross over to APC.
“Furthermore, the PDP has it on good authority that part of this agenda of the APC is to intimidate and harass our members, especially officials who served under our administration.
“However, we wish to state in very unequivocal terms that the PDP leadership, under the chairmanship of Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu, will not condone any witch-hunt on any of our elected and appointed officers, including state governors, ministers, legislators and others who served with clean records as such will be met with stiff resistance within the ambits of the principles of democracy.
“We will do everything humanly possible within the rules to defend democratic principles and ethics, which we have successfully nourished in the past 16 years.”
Fielding questions from newsmen, Metuh explained that the PDP would not go to court to challenge the outcome of the March 28 presidential election.
