The PDP is worried over political developments in the country since the All Progressives Congress took office with the emergence of President MUHAMMADU BUHARI at the federal level.

The PDP is worried over political developments in the country since the All Progressives Congress took office with the emergence of President MUHAMMADU BUHARI at the federal level. In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, OLISA METUH, the PDP claimed that all is not well with the nation’s democracy following the failure of President BUHARI to appoint a new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, thereby allegedly crippling operations at electoral body. METUH noted that this hampers the commission from carrying out its functions as stipulated in Part 1 of 3rd schedule of the 1999 Constitution as amended, putting the electoral system under what it called severe threat. Furthermore, METUH said more than eighty per cent of the statutory seats of thirteen members’ on INEC’s board remain vacant, even as eleven states of the federation are also without Resident Electoral Commissioners because of  the President’s purported failure to make the appointments. 

In addition, the PDP criticised the appointment of a national commissioner whose tenure it claimed has since expired, as the Acting Chairman of INEC, stressing that there was no provision for an acting chairman of INEC in the constitution. Also, the PDP queried what it described as the undue interferences of the Department of State Services in the activities of election tribunals in Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and other PDP states, where  it claimed that electoral  officers are being harassed, intimidated and detained  to  influence judgments against the  party. The party also expressed grave concern over the BUHARI-led administration’s adamant stance in running a government without the statutory components of a full cabinet as prescribed by the constitution.