By Chris Nomjov
Former FCT Minister and current governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party plans to take advantage of the proposed outbreak of violence after the March 28 presidential election as a shield to perpetuate electoral fraud in the 2015 governorship election in Kaduna state.
El-Rufai disclosed this while receiving the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Professor Chidi Odinkalu, at the el-Rufai Campaign Office in Kaduna.
He said “We have a document in which the PDP has planned to use the excuse of the outbreak of violence that is expected after the March 28 presidential election as a cover to write results for the 2015 governorship election.
“PDP expects that people will react violently as they did after the 2011 presidential election was rigged. With this, the party will deploy more troops and thus stop people from defending their votes. This is one reason we have been appealing to our supporters not to engage the PDP in any form of violence, that they should avoid confrontations and must not retaliate when they are attacked. It is for very clear reasons. It is for enlightened self-interest, as far as we are concerned.
“Even, if we believe that responding to violence is the appropriate response for us, Kaduna history and experience have shown that it is not the best response for the opposition, because what happened in 2011 and the reason why PDP was able to write the results of the 2011 elections was because people reacted to the outcome of the presidential elections and that was the cover PDP used to write results in the governorship election.”
