Adams OshiomholeChairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole has said that his party has more reasons to stage street protests against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and courts in the country than opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for daylight cheating the part suffered.
“When I see people protesting, that is my primary constituency, to do protests but I don’t run after mad man when he is naked and I have to join him to run because I want to make a point.
“That is the reason we just allowed them to the sort of thing they were doing.”
The APC chairman, who spoke to newsmen today, January 31 at the presidential villa, Abuja, recalled what happened in Sokoto, saying that there were a lot of issues that INEC cannot defend “but we have to leave with the pain.
“Look at Rivers State. For some technical reasons, we were told we cannot even have candidates, and nobody asked questions. But because we are ruling party, we cannot just begin to go to the streets and begin to protest those things.
“You also know of another state Zamfara, where we won governorship, Senate, House of Representatives and the Supreme Court said our primaries were not perfect, therefore those who were not in the ballot box were declared winner, so we lived with that pain.
“If it is about mobilizing people to attack, we would have mobilized our people against the Supreme Court but that will not be a responsible behaviour in a democracy.
“So, we live with the pain because we understand that, we operate under the principle of separation of powers.”
Oshiomhole advised media not to accept half truths that PDP is parading.
“I think this is important, when I saw Secondus leading that protest, I was tempted to tell him who should be the real protedters: how did Wike, Emmanuel Udom and Dickson becsme governors? Supreme Court ordered the previous leadership, choose to completely dismiss the use of card reader, that is what has brought a lot of mischief now into our electoral system.
“Because, whereas the law recognizes the power of INEC to make bylaws and those bylaws are enforceable in court and there are judicial pronouncements holding those bylaws. when they wanted to allow these PDP states to be returned, their elections having been nulified by elections petition tribunal, nullified by the court of appeal on the basis that they did not comply with INEC guidelines, as regards to using card reader.
“The Supreme Court, looking for escape route for PDP, decided that the use of card reader, yes though in the INEC guidelines, is not in the law. Can everything possibly be in the law? “The same court recognized the power of INEC to make rules and regulations for smooth conduct of elections. We have stomached all of these because as they say, two wrongs don’t make a right.
“If we choose to question, on the streets of Nigeria, all of the impunity we have seen that have affected APC negatively coming from our courts, there will be no peace anywhere. But we have said that somebody must bear the price of peace that is why we choose to keep quiet.
“It doesn’t mean PDP has any valid cases.”
