The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has condemned Saturday’s violent clampdown on peaceful Democracy Day protesters by security agents in different parts of the country.
A statement on Saturday, June 12, 2021, by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, described clampdown as sacrilegious and a demonstration of the government’s aversion to democracy as well as its barefaced repugnance towards Nigerians, particularly in their demand for their rights.
“It is awkward that the APC and President Buhari, who were allowed their freedom when they protested in 2014, would turn around to subject Nigerians to actions of inhumanity including the use of firearms against the people, as being witnessed today.
“It is instructive to note that President Buhari, in his supposed Democracy Day address, failed to rein in his security operatives despite the cautions by the PDP. This places the culpability for whatever befalls Nigerians, in the face of the violent attacks by security agencies, on the APC as well as Mr. President’s desk,” the party said.
The PDP knocked President Muhammadu Buhari for failing to make any commitment towards upholding democratic tenets of free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to protest in his Democracy Day speech.
Stating that these rights are guaranteed by the constitution, the PDP recalled that Buhari and members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, benefited from such rights in 2014 without let or hindrance.
“Our party is cataloguing all the infringements which the APC and President Buhari are rudely imposing on Nigerians and we urge all global democratic institutions to take note of the violent infringements and clampdown on democracy in Nigeria by the APC,” the statement added.
