The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said, yesterday, that increase in the number of Nigerians participating in the Continuous Voter Registration exercise is a clear protest against “misrule”.
The opposition party urged more Nigerians to participate to vote against hunger, poverty, and insecurity, which it said increased during the Buhari administration.
At a press conference in Abuja, the PDP through its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, also called on the chairman, Caretaker/Convention Planning Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mai Mala Buni, to resign and restrict himself to the governance of Yobe State.
The PDP said it was happy that INEC had come out to reveal that not less than one million Nigerians have so far participated in the registration.
The party said: “To us, this one million person constitute a referendum against the maladministration of President Muhammadu Buhari as well as the All Progressives Congress because many of those who are registering now through the continuous voter registration exercise of INEC are people who have attained the age of 18 – people who have never participated in the registration exercise before; young men and young women, out there, who are totally dissatisfied with the situation the All Progressives Congress has brought our country to. These are the people who are currently engaging the continuous voter registration exercise.”
According to the party, “The referendum Nigerians who are registering now have against the All Progressives Congress as well as President Muhammadu Buhari borders on the fact that they are protesting the poverty, hunger, and starvation in our nation today”.
“It is a referendum against the high cost of living. Many of us are aware that a measure of beans in the Nigerian market is N1,000, that a measure of garri is N600, that a bag of rice is N30,000, that a bottle of red oil is N750, that 12.5kg of gas, previously N2,000, has become N6,000.”
The PDP also faulted the Supreme Court judgment on the Ondo governorship elections. It said there was no way Mai Mala Buni, as governor of Yobe State, could also function as chairman of the APC.
“That is totally an aberration of the doctrine and dictates as established in the APC constitution as well as the 1999 constitution as amended. We insist that the process that led to the emergence of Governor Akeredolu was and remains a violation of the APC constitution as well as the 1999 constitution,” the party added.
