The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), last week, raised fresh alarm that Lawal Daura, the newly appointed Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) is interfering with election matters pending before the tribunals. DGossip247 examines this disturbing allegation
This is not the first time the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is making such allegations. But the alleged involvement of the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Lawal Daura, is not only weighty but disturbing. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, had while briefing journalists at the end of the weekly National Working Committee (NWC) on July 16, said the party has received information that Daura, who was appointed DG two weeks ago, has invited some people in relation to Rivers and other state tribunals trying to discuss such matters with the panel members.
“PDP want to alert the nation and international community that this is gross interference in democratic affairs, which can lead to draconian regime where security forces and apparatus of government will be used to decide and influence election matters,” Metuh observed. He repeated the same allegation a day after when he visited Country Directors of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) in Nigeria, Jasper Veen and Sentell Barnes, respectively. PDP spokesperson told his hosts that: “Democracy is on trial in Nigeria.
The APC is engaging on campaign of calumny and witch-hunting of PDP leaders. Government is influencing security agencies to frame elected leaders. We want President Muhammadu Buhari to be fair and father to all Nigerians irrespective of political parties.” Before the present allegation, the party had accused the Inspector- General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase of trying to frame the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu in a bid to force him to resign. Ekweremadu, a PDP member, was elected Deputy President of the Senate against the tradition in the past where the party with majority produced both the President of the Senate and his deputy.
His emergence did not go down well with members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) including President Buhari, and there have been calls for him to resign. But PDP said, having realised that they could not muster the number to impeach him or force him to resign, the governing party has resorted to intimidation and harassment to force Ekweremadu to give way for the APC preferred candidate. “We are aware that some APC senators opposed to the emergence of Senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as Senate President and Deputy Senate President respectively… concocted a petition accusing the Deputy Senate President of altering the Senate Rules on the process of election of the presiding officers,” Metuh noted.
He disclosed that the IG, acting on instructions, has invited the Deputy Senate President with a view to arresting him over “phantom charges as a build up to incarcerate him, create a vacuum in the Senate and pave way for the imposition of APC preferred senator to take over his position.” Metuh disclosed that the police in a letter dated July 1 and signed by the Deputy Inspector General in charge of criminal investigation at the Force Headquarters, has invited Ekweremadu to appear before him on Monday, July 6, where he would be detained and put under pressure to resign.
The pre-emptive information, however, stopped the planned arrest, and it does appear the matter has died down. The police denied inviting Ekweremadu, though it admitted that police team from the criminal department met and “interacted” with the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa.
The PDP had immediately after the inauguration of the APC government at the centre, said it was privy to intelligence reports showing certain clandestine moves and nocturnal meetings in Lagos and Abuja on how to compromise the sanctity of the electoral tribunals in their compositions and location to suit the APC purpose. “We are aware that there are moves by the APC to cause the doctoring of the membership of the gubernatorial election tribunals in some PDP states, particularly Akwa Ibom, Abia, Rivers and Delta with the aim to bring in friendly officers, possibly to push through their agenda against our great party.
“Also, we question the so-called security reasons adduced for the decision to relocate the Akwa Ibom State governorship, National and state Assembly elections tribunals out of the state and wonder why Akwa Ibom was singled out. “Nigerians and the international community would recall that we had earlier alerted of furtive moves by the APC to procure and compromise some stakeholders in the elections, including INEC and security personnel to bear false witness and doctor electoral materials against the PDP at the tribunals,” PDP stated.
The APC through its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has admitted petitioning the DG DSS against some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Rivers, necessitating their invitation. According to Mohammed, those petitioned against were the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Rivers State, Mrs. Gesila Khan; the Administrative Secretary, Mr. Obijuru Royson; Head of Operations Department, Bocco Ekong; and Legal Officer, Fumi Gaffar.He said the reason was the denial of APC access to some documents used for the last governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state but were domiciled at the commission’s head office.
He alleged that some directors at the INEC head office in Abuja had been trying to deny the APC access to the documents despite that the INEC Chairman “had promptly attended to the issue and directed the said officials to furnish the needed documents.” He said: “The PDP’s wolf crying over a conspiracy it orchestrated with the Rivers INEC to deny the APC access to documents used for the said elections amounts to barefaced lies and a clear attempt at distorting facts. The four oil-rich states of Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Abia have been a contest between PDP and APC since the April 11 governorship election.
Although traditionally PDP states, APC believes that the conduct of the polls in these states was less than transparent. Besides, the states appear to be the backbone of PDP, which if taken away from it will leave the party prostrate and without substance. The opposition party, therefore, believes that the governing party wants to use its control of security agencies to take these states away from it. On July 10 after a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, dissolved 22 local government councils whose elections were conducted on May 23, some five days to the inauguration of a new government, the police denied appointed caretaker committees access to the secretariat.
PDP accused the force of double standard. It wondered why the police could allow “the dissolution of local government councils and appointment of caretaker committees in APC-controlled Plateau and Kaduna states, even when they were without the orders of the court but elected to clamp down on that of Rivers State, which came as a result of judicial pronouncement.” The party said it “is a yet another clear indication that the Nigerian police may have become a partisan and compromised instrument in the hands of the APC Federal Government to destabilise PDP-controlled states, particularly Rivers State.”
Apart from the police and the recent allegation against the DG of the DSS, PDP had accused the Acting Chairman of INEC, Mrs. Amina Zakari of working for the APC. Though the party raised no objection against the appointment of Daura, it however, faulted the appointment of Zakari, even though on acting capacity.
It said the acting INEC chairperson has “consanguineous relationship” with President Buhari. It had alleged that certain officials at INEC were given instructions by some APC leaders to alter some electoral documents and records against Ekweremadu in order to create the impression that he did not file proper documents for the general elections to pave way for his removal. The future will either prove PDP right or wrong!
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