PDP faults Lai Mohammed over alleged interim government plot

• Ex-leader can’t determine Buhari’s health, says Ekiti APC
• Ruling party destroying our campaign billboards, opposition alleges

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday rejected the idea of an interim government, allegedly being proposed by Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on behalf of the presidency.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, it insisted that the party and indeed Nigerians would not accept an interim government, which it described as unconstitutional.

“This is because the PDP is confident of landslide victory on February 16, given the overwhelming support, which its Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, enjoys among Nigerians across board.

“Suggesting an interim government, under any pretext, context or contemplation can only come from desperate and unpatriotic minds in a failed administration that has lost hope of being re-elected in a free, fair and credible election due to its manifest incompetence and massive corruption,” the statement reads.

It added that Nigerians are aware of APC and President Muhammadu Buhari Presidency’s desperation ahead of the 2019 general elections, leading to their resort to threats, intimidation and clamp down on dissenting voices, as well as assault on democratic institutions in the face of incontrovertible indices pointing to their imminent defeat at the polls.

The PDP noted that it has already alerted Nigerians that Mohammed had revealed “APC’s ignoble ‘plan B’ of ‘if we can’t have it, then destroy it, which is to cause violence, derail the electoral process and blame it on the opposition; not minding the damage such could cause the nation, including human and material losses.

However, APC’s Buhari/Osinbajo Campaign Council in Ekiti State has said former President Olusegun Obasanjo was not a medical doctor to determine Buhari’s health status.

Obasanjo was quoted as saying that Buhari was unfit in body, spirit and soul to continue to preside over the nation’s affairs.

Director General of the council, Dr. Olusegun Osinkolu and his deputy, Taiwo Olatunbosun, who spoke yesterday at a media briefing, said President Buhari had been campaigning round the country, insisting that it was wrong for Obasanjo to brand Buhari as unfit.

Meanwhile, Ekiti chapter of the PDP alleged that APC sponsored the hoodlums that destroyed the party’s campaign billboards and posters, while the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited the state on Monday.

Its senatorial candidate for Ekiti Central senatorial district, Obafemi Adewale, alleged that some hoodlums loyal to APC, who were on Osinbajo’s convoy, were sighted vandalising PDP’scampaign materials.

Obafemi, a former Secretary General of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and ex-Attorney General of Ekiti State, said petitions have been sent to security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to inform them of the development.