The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Sunday, April 1, 2018, insisted that Ibrahim Mantu, a former deputy senate president, was never directed to rig elections on its behalf.
Mantu had admitted that he helped the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rig elections in the past.
Following Mantu’s disclosure, the All Progressives Congress, APC, called on the PDP to confess its sins against the country.
Reacting, PDP, in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, its spokesperson, said Mantu’s reported confession was personal to him and had nothing to do with the party.
The former ruling party stressed that it has never directed any of its members to rig election on its behalf at any point since the party’s formation.
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The statement reads, “Senator Mantu spoke about his personal activities and tendencies in the elections where he participated. The PDP has never directed or had any pact with him to rig election on its behalf. Never!
“Individuals run their elections on the platform of political parties once they emerge as candidates. In the PDP, candidates are issued with the party’s Code of Conduct containing the basic rules of electioneering engagements.
“There is nowhere in this rules of engagement where candidates or party members are directed to rig elections on behalf of the party. If any member’s conduct transgressed these basic rules of engagement, that individual did not act on behalf of the PDP, and as such the party cannot be vicariously held responsible.
“It will, therefore, be misplaced for anybody, including the APC, to surmise that Senator Mantu, in the said confession of rigging, acted on behalf of the PDP.
“After all, in 2007, Senator Mantu lost his own senatorial election. What, then, happened to his rigging machinery, if he could not deliver himself.
