The main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has sounded the alarm over President Muhammadu Buhari’s continued refusal to approve the Electoral Law Amendment Bill passed by the National Assembly, saying that it is an APC plot to perpetuate itself in power.

Addressing a global press conference in Abuja, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said Buhari’s refusal could lead to violence and a humanitarian crisis that could affect the West African sub-region.

He said the PDP fears that with less than a year to go until the 2023 general election, President Buhari and the APC administration “are heightening apprehensions across the country and orchestrating a constitutional stalemate that could lead to our democracy in an emergency extension of the mandate”.

The spokesman accused the administration of plotting to postpone elections or “even worse a caretaker government situation”.

He said there was growing tension with the potential to engender “widespread unrest with consecutive violence, bloodshed and concomitant humanitarian crisis in the country which could affect the entire West African sub-region, Europe, America and other parts of the world if left untreated.

“It is because Nigerians, especially the youth, have become more politically aware and involved, with a well-founded and relentless aversion to injustice, oppression, manipulation and anti-democratic tendencies as evidenced by the administration. APC. Evidence of this mindset was evident in the October 2020 EndSARS event.”

Ologunagba also said they were in possession of information on how some “selfish unelected ministers, advisers and other senior officials with ambitions for the presidency, governorship and other elective positions are exerting increasing pressure on President Buhari not to sign the Electoral Law Amendment Bill to allow them to stay longer in power to continue using public funds to pursue their political interests in a corrupt manner.

“President Buhari, who claims to fight corruption, condones and encourages this disproportionate access to public funds in pursuit of private ambitions.

“The only way for Mr. President to get out of this is to immediately sign the Election Law Amendment Bill,” PDP said.

He advised President Buhari and the APC leadership to stop playing with the aspiration of Nigerians to entrench democracy through free, fair, transparent and credible elections in 2023.”

According to the opposition party, given the precarious political situation in the country today, they are calling on Nigerians, trade unions, civil society, student associations, trade unions to put pressure on the president to sign the bill to amend the electoral law in order to avoid an imminent election. crisis in the country.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should also “stand on the side of democracy, to prepare to use the technology that abounds to ensure the direct transmission of election results from polling stations in the 2023 elections.”

Meanwhile, a former Senate Speaker, Senator Bukola Saraki, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to endorse the bill as a legacy for the foundation of democracy in the country.

Speaking to reporters shortly after attending the meeting of zonal and state leaders of the PDP at the party’s national headquarters in Abuja, Saraki called on the President to sign the bill because the strength of all good governance lies in its electoral process.

APC secretary John James Akpanudoedehe did not take his call or respond to a text message sent to his phone.

By Baba Martins