A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena has described President Muhammadu Buhari as a bastion of democracy and credible elections following the president’s recognition and assent to June 12 as the country’s Democracy Day, adding that the recent move by some international observers to discredit 2019 elections was a wasted efforts.
Nabena, who is the APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, described the reports recently release by the EU, NDI and IRI as part of international conspiracy against Nigeria.
According to Nabena, “It was a western agenda to destabilize democratic process in Nigeria. These same forces have tried to use ethnic agenda but failed. They tried to use Boko Haram and other insecurity challenges but the APC administration is up to the task.
The Bayelsa-born APC Chieftain while speaking some newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, said President Buhari proved himself a patriot and displayed a sincerity of purpose unlike past presidents who politicised and paid lip service to the June 12 struggle since 1999.
“Since 1999, former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan missed the opportunity to redress the wrongs of June 12, 1993, but instead chose to play politics with the issue. President Buhari in assenting into law June 12 as Nigeria’s democracy day proved himself a patriot, democrat and strong defender of credible elections. President Buhari has undoubtedly been inducted in the democracy hall of fame.” He said.
Reacting to the recent reports of some foreign missions that monitored the 2019 General Elections, Nabena countered that while there were isolated cases of irregularities, the election was credible and a marked improvement compared to the 2015 exercise.
Nabena said, “Elections conducted under President Buhari have witnessed increased sanctity of votes and the entire electoral process. For example the 2019 election witnessed increased use of the card readers and reduced the prevalence of vote-buying, violence, ballot box snatching and announcement of fraudulent election results.
“It should be noted that no election is perfect anywhere in the world, including the United State of America. I suspect that Buhari-led government’s economic diversification policy which has drastically reduced heavy reliance on the Western countries seem to be a major burden to some persons, hence the negative narrations.
“It is also surprising that these international observers didn’t put into consideration how many states the ruling party lost to opposition PDP in the said elections. Then I asked if the elections were not credible how come opposition had it way easily in some states.
“It is on record that the international forces had tried even before the 2019 elections to use some of their agents in Nigeria to discredit President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid. Some of them, who were direct beneficiaries of looted fund in the past openly castigated the re-election plan through open letters and different conferences.” Nabena stated.
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