Lai Mohammed, Fani-Kayode bicker on plot to transfer money to Jega’s account, implicate Tinubu, others

National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday, accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jonathan of, among others, plotting to frame the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, manipulate the general elections and implicate opposition leaders.
Addressing the media in Lagos, he said:
“It’s just about three weeks to the start of the rescheduled 2015 general elections, and the expectations across the country and outside our borders are very high, just as the tension among Nigerians!
“The eyes of the world are focused on our country, Nigeria, to organise a free, fair, credible and violence-free election that will not only deepen our democracy but will also show to the world that our leadership position in the West African sub-region and the African continent is not a fluke.
“While we in the All Progressives Congress (APC), and definitely most Nigerians, also expect nothing less than very transparent elections, indications are that those at the helms have grown so desperate that they do not even want the elections to hold. And even if the elections must hold at all, they must be held on their own terms: No PVCs, No Car Readers, No Jega, and the military must be deployed to intimidate voters!
“These dangerous conditionalities by the ruling party, the PDP, and the Jonathan Administration, have been playing out publicly, no thanks to the inauspicious comments by elements of the ruling party, who could no longer hide their disdain for credible polls and, indeed, for democracy itself.
“But what has not played out openly are some of the criminal and unlawful actions being secretly hatched by the PDP and the Jonathan Administration to rig the forthcoming general elections and perpetuate themselves in power.
“The handwriting is clear: This Administration knows it can never win in a free, fair and credible elections because of its appalling record in office. Nigerians want change through the ballot box, and they are determined to effect that change with their PVCs.
“Let me now take you through some of those evil plots being hatched to deny the people of Nigerians their right to vote for change.
1. There is a plot to transfer a humongous amount of money into the bank account of the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and then claim that the money came from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC in order to justify the ongoing plan to sack Prof. Jega so he won’t organise the elections.
Beyond Jega, there is also a plan to credit the bank accounts of some key national institutions with huge amounts of money purportedly from our party, the APC, ostensibly to compromise those institutions.
2. There is plan to use some political parties that are satellites of the PDP to push for the postponement of the elections again. The plot is to get the parties to address a press conference to say the elections should not hold in the North-east until Sept. 2015 because of the ongoing counter-insurgency battle there. The intention is to make sure Jega’s tenure expires before the polls, so that they can appoint a malleable card-carrying member of the PDP as INEC Chair to conduct the polls.
3. There a plan to use the security agencies to intimidate key opposition leaders as well as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and telecommunications service providers to disrupt voice and data transmission, especially in APC strongholds, on election day.
As we have said earlier, the telephones of our leaders have been bugged and their movements are being daily monitored.
Top on the list of the security agencies to be used against the opposition is the DSS, which will be used to compel all Resident Electoral Commissioners in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory to hand over the names and telephone numbers of all INEC’s regular and ad
hoc staff who will conduct the elections, as part of the Jonathan Administration’s rigging plans.
It is no longer news that a signal has been sent to all state commands of the DSS to get the list of all INEC Returning Officers and Adhoc Staff before March 10th.
4. There is also the ongoing illegal recruitment over 500 new cadets into one of the country’s security outfits, 50% of whom are from the home state of the outfit’s top brass, in violation of the provisions of the Constitution, especially as the recruitment does not reflect the Federal Character
5. Nocturnal meetings are being held between various heads of national security agencies and the leadership of the PDP to undermine the coming elections;
6. The Presidency has retained the services of two Israelis and a Belgian who are currently holed up in the Aso Rock Villa to hack and corrupt INEC computers on election day, with the trio having already been paid 25 percent of their contract fees upfront.
7. There is an ongoing effort to compromise the card reader, which the Jonathan Administration sees as inimical to its rigging plans.
8. Huge funds are being provided for retired and serving security personnel to buy up PVCs, with the hope that they can be used once the card reader is compromised. Remember, gentlemen, that there is a case in court seeking to declare the use of the card reader in the forthcoming elections unconstitutional.
9. In the days leading up to the elections, the Jonathan Administration is planning to give the opposition the Ekiti treatment by massively arresting key opposition leaders, with a view to destabilizing their ranks, putting them away and paving the way for a free rein of their rigging agents. Towards this end, thousands of signed blank detention orders have been procured.
10. As part of the plan to implicate our leaders, illegal substances may be put into their checked-in luggage during local and international flights. That is why we are calling on our leaders to travel only with their carry-on baggage.
Let me say that the detailed plans by the desperate Jonathan Administration and the PDP are part of the massive intelligence we are receiving daily from patriotic Nigerians, within and outside the government, who are eager to see the organization of a free, fair, credible and violence-free elections that will catapult Nigeria to the league of truly democratic nations.
“We have decided to share the information we are receiving with Nigerians because we believe that no power is strong enough to stop a people who are determined to effect change in the way and manner they are being governed, and that the ultimate power resides in the people.
We have no doubt that the information will fortify the local and international observers who are coming for the elections, in addition to enhancing the vigilance of the citizenry before, during and after the polls”.
But, in a swift reaction, the Director of Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, said in a statement:
“This morning, through its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the APC has made a series of absurd and clearly ludicrous claims and allegations. It is clear that these claims and allegations are nothing but the paranoid ranting of a paranoid little man that is working for a paranoid party. Rather than trying to prepare his masters’ minds for the defeat that is coming their way, Lai Mohammed has come again with his verbal diarrhea.
“The truth is that we are not strategising to shift the election dates. We are not trying to frame up Jega. We have no plans to plant any illegal substance in the bags of any of the leaders of the APC whenever they travel. We are not trying to compromise the telephone numbers of any of the INEC officials. President Jonathan is not planning to arrest opposition leaders before the elections. The Presidency has not retained the services of any foreigner to corrupt or compromise INEC computers on Election Day and we are not planning to do any of the other reprehensible things that they have alleged. The truth is that if they were in our position, these are the sort of sordid things that they would do. Such dirty things and filthy tactics are a way of life and an art with them. But for us, such things are alien, perverse and unacceptable.
“The PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation is not surprised that the APC is resorting to peddling falsehood in order to gain public sympathy. For quite some time now, the party has been displaying its expertise in the cheap propaganda for which it is well-known. We take exception to their fiction and false claims and we will not take this matter lightly.
“These spurious allegations follow a well-documented pattern of lies that only recently saw them falsely claiming that an interview conducted by one of its sympathizers at the Abuja Transcorp Hilton Hotel was conducted by a so-called independent journalist in the UK. The whole world now knows that, on that occasion, as on many other occasions, the APC told a barefaced lie.
“This new smear campaign against the PDP-led Federal Government is clearly propelled by the fact that the APC knows fullly that it has gone as far as it can go with its propaganda and deceit and that it will be thoroughly beaten by the PDP at the polls in the upcoming elections.
“The APC and its leaders are simply unraveling and falling apart at the seams. They are the ones who had perfected a plan to rig the forthcoming elections through the lopsided distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). They were very comfortable with the fact that 34 percent of registered voters had not collected their PVCs as at February 14 just before the presidential election was postponed.
“The APC and its leaders said that they were ready for that election when it was obvious that the PVC collection rate in the north, comprising some of the traditional strongholds of their presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, was higher than the collection rate in the south, the traditional support base of our candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.
“We are happy that many eligible voters are now going out to collect their PVCs. We know that the APC and its leaders are not happy about this development because they had wanted to railroad themselves on the nation through a compromised and rigged election. How can they be happy when the advantage they obviously enjoyed before the postponement of the February 14 presidential election has now been removed?
“Our position on the card reader remains that the machine has not been tested in any election and there are bases for genuine concern over the use of the machine, for the first time, in a crucial election of this magnitude. We are aware of the plot by the APC, working in cahoots with some strategically placed and retrogressive elements, to use the card readers to frustrate accreditation in some parts of the country while not enforcing strict use of the machines in some other parts. The truth is that if they go ahead with that wicked plot, the APC and its collaborators will only be preparing the ground for mass resistance. They can be rest assured that we will not sit by idly and allow such a thing to unfold.
“The APC and its leaders are merchants of violence. They are creating laughable scenarios and possibilities that will feed into their agenda to cause chaos and violence before, during and after the forthcoming elections. This is why we insist on the deployment of soldiers in the forthcoming elections as it was done in the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Osun where APC won, in Ondo where Labour Party won, in Anambra where APGA won, and in Ekiti where the PDP won.
“One of the APC governors in the person of Adams Oshiomhole had this to say during the 2012 governorship election in Edo State and I quote: “The army is here to deal with trouble-makers. The only people who need to be worried are those who intend to cause trouble… As the Governor of Edo State, I believe we need the army to complement the efforts of the Police. I remember that under our “Operation Thunder Storm”, the army has since been involved in complementing the efforts of the Police to provide internal security. So don’t allow anybody to fool you that army is going to harass you, to prevent you from voting. No! The army is here to assist so that your vote will count.” End quote. So why is the APC now paranoid about the deployment of soldiers? They are certainly up to something sinister.
“The PDP has always insisted that the INEC has the constitutional duty to conduct free and fair elections and hence has never interfered with the Commission’s preparations. Specifically, President Goodluck Jonathan has always said he and his government have absolutely no intention of interfering with INEC’s activities, even though the INEC chairman and commissioners are his appointees.
“We can categorically state that the PDP, having earned pass marks for overseeing the conduct of free and fair elections in the past had no plans to compromise the coming elections, given our high-level of preparedness for the exercise.
“As at today, President Goodluck Jonathan has led the campaign of PDP to all the 36 states of the Federation, specifically to most places which the APC and other parties had never gone to. We are, by this, confident of winning the forthcoming elections by the grace of the Almighty God and the support of a vast majority of Nigerians. We will win resoundingly while the APC will suffer a crushing and irreversible defeat”.