Chairman of the opposition party, PDP, Uche Secondus, has expressed fears that the 2019 general elections might not be free and fair. Secondus said this when he played host to a United Nation delegation that paid him a courtesy visit at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja yesterday January 31st 2018.
According to Secondus, most of the elections conducted since PDP left power has ended in rerun which is an indication that INEC is not ready to do the bidding of voters.
We were in power as a party for 16 years to be precise, we deepened democracy with our actions. In the last general elections of 2015, we lost and conceded defeat, without attempting to go to court. It is the first time that a party and its candidate would decide not to contest the outcome of an election in this country. It has never happened in this country. We did not go to court and our candidate did not go to court as well. We realised and decided that the outcome was democracy in action and that it was the will of the people. But we have fears today that since the APC came to power, all the elections we have conducted came with huge question marks.
As a matter of fact, INEC is the only electoral body that has conducted elections several times and the government will call for a rerun when it is not in their favour. I, therefore, want the delegation to look seriously in the area of free and fair elections that guarantee security. This is a point that must be noted by the UN body, that what they have done in the past, the electoral umpire and the Federal Government have not guaranteed free and fair elections. We are very, very worried whether 2019 will be free and fair” he said
credit: Linda Ikeji's Blog http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2018/2/2019-election-might-not-be-free-and-fair-pdp-chairman-uche-secondus-says.html
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