In the lead-up to the 2023 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to protect its members from attacks.
At a news conference on Friday in Abuja, the PCC Director of Strategic Communications, Dele Momodu, made the request. He claimed that the PDP, the then-ruling party, did not harass or criticize the APC throughout its 2015 presidential campaign.
Momodu added that the PDP is not to install its billboards or use public broadcasting stations in APC-controlled states, noting that the opposition party’s campaigns had been assaulted in various locations.
According to him, ” in practically all APC controlled states, It has been virtually impossible for us to install our billboards, to paste our posters, use APC government controlled radio stations, especially in Lagos where the candidate of the APC is seen as next to God.
“So, I wish to appeal through you to the federal government, since they control the APC, that this is not what democracy is all about. I was one of those who fought and suffered for this democracy. We never envisaged that in the civilian regime, we are going to have this kind of harassment, whereby we cannot practice democracy as it should be done.
“In 2014 2015, I was one of those who supported Buhari, and there was never a time that PDP disturbed us, because if they had disturbed us, maybe there would have been no Buhari. So, we are hoping that Mr. president would help us speak to the security agencies, to protect the lives of our people, to protect our properties wherever they are on the soil of Nigeria, because we are all Nigerians.”