The Peoples Democratic Party has rejected the amended Electoral Act as passed by the National Assembly, calling it the “murder of democracy.”
The National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, said this in Abuja on Friday during a media briefing.
According to Secondus, the National Assembly has turned its back on Nigerians by putting party interest before national interest.
He said, “We join our voices and anger with that of Nigerians and all lovers of democracy in condemning what happened in the National Assembly yesterday Thursday and today Friday.
“How a representative of the people enjoying their mandate blatantly turned their back on them and toed the line of a political party interest that is clearly against the people.
“By the choice of the All Progressives Congress to put party interest before national interest, they have vividly murdered democracy by the actions of their members in the two chambers of the National Assembly yesterday and today.
“For us in PDP, today is a Black Friday for democracy.”
Secondus added that a free, fair and credible election was the tripod of any democracy, saying that the APC itself was a beneficiary of the Electoral Reform under the PDP administration.
“The action of APC in swaying their members against the electronic transmission of election results clearly undermines and shows in unmistaken terms that APC is not ready to face the Nigerian electorate.
“It also shows that the dilly-dallying of APC all the while in amending the Electoral Act is deliberate as they never wanted from inception to do anything that will deepen democracy in our country.
“This is notwithstanding that the party is a huge beneficiary of Electoral Reform carried out by the PDP administration,” he said.
Secondus, therefore rejected the amended act and called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to consider the move by the national assembly as a “big scam.”
He added that the PDP would take every legal step to seek redress, calling on all lovers of democracy to “stand up against this fraud.”