The PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation (PPCO), on Tuesday said that a vote for candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is an endorsement of fascism, hunger and insecurity in the country.
The Director Media and Publicity of the PPCO, Kola Ologbondiyan, at a press conference in Abuja, said that Nigeria was becoming a totalitarian state under the present government, adding the February 16 presidential election is a referendum for freedom of Nigerians.
The PPCO said Nigerians should defend the nation’s democracy by voting out the APC in order to restore Nigeria’s past glory and guarantee the security of lives and property as well as revamp the economy.
“The PPCO urges all compatriots to note that any vote for APC is an endorsement of fascism and allowing President Buhari another tenure will be a pathway to full totalitarianism, where citizens would be treated as vassals in a conquered territory.
“We are all witnesses to the unrelenting assault on the institution of the judiciary and the courts by the Buhari Presidency and the APC.
“This siege on the Judiciary has now come to a climax with the widely condemned attempt by the Buhari Presidency and the APC to forcefully remove the Chief Justice of the Nigeria, (CJN) Justice Walter Onnoghen.
“The world can recall how the Buhari Presidency, in a widely condemned ‘sting operation’ in 2016, used the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to hound and round up sitting Supreme Court and High Court judges in Nigeria.
“Since that ‘sting operation’, our judiciary in Nigeria has remained under siege with the agents of the Buhari Presidency and the APC directly interfering in cases and trying to direct the rulings of courts.
“Nigerians and the world can recall also how agents of the Buhari Presidency and the APC, last year, besieged and attempted to forcefully remove the elected leadership of the National Assembly; the symbol of our democracy.
“Nigerians will also recall how the APC and the Buhari Presidency used apparatus of state powers to seal the legislative complex, unleashed thugs to invade the Senate chamber, disrupted legislative proceedings and forcefully carted away the mace, the emblem of the sovereignty and authority of the people.
“In our slide into fascism, Nigerians are daily falling victims of extreme torture, illegal detention, extra-judicial and arbitrary killings, forceful crackdown on peaceful protesters and mass burial by unrestrained agents of the state, as detailed in the 2017/2018 Amnesty International (AI) Human Rights Report.
“In the same vein, there have been concerted efforts by the government to gag the media leading to the manhandling of journalists and invasion of media houses over reports considered unfavourable to the government,” the PPCO said.
