Track down APC mercenaries to save democracy, PDP tells army

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the Nigerian Army and other security agencies to track down political mercenaries and thugs allegedly smuggled into Nigeria by the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the recently conducted general elections. Reacting to army’s claim that some unpatriotic elements in the country were conniving with some foreign interests to scuttle democracy in Nigeria, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said in a statement yesterday that the APC should be held responsible.

 The party accused the APC of importing mercenaries and using them to unleash violence on the nation “to facilitate its rigging” of the elections. The PDP appealed to security agencies to compel the APC to disclose the identity and whereabouts of the mercenaries and their traffickers to enable them flush the mercenaries out and shield Nigeria and democracy from further security threats as alleged by the army.

“Nigerians can recall that the PDP had raised the alarm when the APC, seeing that it cannot win in a free, fair and credible election, compromised our territorial borders to bring in political mercenaries from other countries to participate in their campaign rallies, as well as assist them in perpetuating violence.

“Nigerians can also recall how APC agents unbridled violence on voters in Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Kogi, Taraba, Adamawa and other states of the federation to muscle votes for its candidates, particularly in the Presidential election; and how the APC leadership stood in staunch defence of the compromising of our territorial borders as well as the violence that characterized the elections.

“This was in addition to apprehensions of possible plots by the APC to use the thugs to cause confusion and derail our democratic process,