APC flays Jonathan over assurances of credible 2015 elections

The All Progressives Congress has reacted to President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent assurance that the 2015 election would be amazingly credible and peaceful. The party has asked the President and his government to walk the talk, saying all the assurances given so far by the Jonathan cannot be translated into free and fair elections.
The APC, in a statement in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, urged the President to transcend sheer rhetoric and embark on concrete actions in order to ensure a credible election in 2015, unlike the Anambra and Ekiti gubernatorial
elections that were allegedly marred by intimidation and other irregular practices reportedly perpetrated by the PDP.
The party said:”On the same day the President’s latest assurances of a free, fair, credible and transparent elections in 2015 were being reported, agents of the Jonathan-led federal government were ransacking the offices of a company hired to carry out an opinion poll for Osun State ahead of the August 9 gubernatorial election.
”If the opposition can no longer freely carry out opinion polls, if the companies hired to carry out such polls are harassed and intimidated by SSS officials as they did to tnsrms, the offices of which were searched for six hours, after which top officials of the firm were dragged to the SSS offices in Shangisha and computers carted away, then how can any President convince anyone that free and fair elections can be held under his watch?
”If the Ngozi Okonjo Iweala-linked NOI polling firm has never been harassed for its choreographed opinion polls that favour the Jonathan Administration, why should other firms be subjected to the kind of Gestapo- tactics that tnsrms was exposed to? This is why we are asking President Jonathan to walk to talk.”
The party said that, with past experiences, the Osun state election would equally be rigged. It said INEC has been frustrating attempts by its members to obtain their Permanent Voters Cards.
The party further blamed INEC, stating that,”Jega should be asked to explain why is it that the troops who were sent to provide security for the Ekiti election were harassing and intimidating only the opposition? Why is it that they were arresting only opposition members? Is that also part of providing security for an election? If soldiers had only provided non-intrusive security for the election, perhaps no one would have complained. But where they turned themselves into the enforcement arm of the ruling party, everyone, including INEC, should be concerned.”
The party called on President Jonathan to desist from sending the military to monitor election in the name of peace keeping, demanding that he reads the riot act to his cabinet members, like Musiliu Obanikoro and Abduljelili Adesiyna, and other party officials who are experts in electoral malpractices.
”Saying one thing and doing the opposite, Mr. President, will not translate to credible elections. The world is watching,” it said