Our members facing persecution – PDP govs, senators-elect

Governors and senators-elect, who are members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, have alleged that members of the party are being harassed and persecuted since it lost the presidential election on March 28.

They said since the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), the winner of the March 28 election, members of the PDP had been facing one form of harassment or the other.

The governors and senators-elect stated this after their meeting with the members of the National Working Committee of the party, led by its National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mua’zu, in Abuja on Tuesday.

The meeting was held at the party’s national secretariat.

A senator-elect from Rivers State, George Sekibo, read the communique of the meeting on behalf of the attendees.

He said, “That the meeting is highly commendable and must be sustained by the party.

“The meeting commends the President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, for his statesmanly disposition in the sustenance of democracy and peace in the country.

“That the meeting frowns on the unprecedented level of intimidation, harassment and undue persecution of the party members since the INEC’s declaration of the APC candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.”

The meeting, according to him, also called on INEC to be forthright and impartial in the handling of the various elections pending in Abia, Imo and Taraba states.

On the crisis rocking Ekiti State, Sekibo said the meeting “vehemently frowns on the shameless undemocratic ways and means being displayed by the outgoing APC lawmakers in Ekiti State towards effecting an unconstitutional change in government.

“That the meeting warns the APC is planning to use the tribunals and ‘salamic’ arrangements to truncate and subvert the freely given mandate by the people in the states and constituencies

“The meeting expressed deep concerns at the plans by the APC to make the country a one-party state, using crude and underhand, undemocratic practice and thus reverse the gains of the PDP-led administration,” the meeting added.