APC Ask PDP For A Peace Meeting

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has extended an olive branch to the People’s democratic party and asked for a peace meeting.

In a statement released today by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC called for a sitdown with PDP stakeholders to help douse the tension that is building up ahead of the election.

They wrote that the call is part of their plan, set up since May 2014, when they first asked for such a meeting with the PDP.

The statement read:

”Following up on a meeting of representatives of both parties in Washington, DC, US, April 7-8 2014 under the auspices of the CSIS Nigeria Election Forum, at which it was agreed that a joint meeting of both parties be convened to discuss and agree on the crucial issue of a Code of Conduct for the campaigns and the elections, we wrote a letter to the PDP suggesting a bipartisan meeting to address the issue.

”We have since been following up on the letter, the latest effort being on Dec. 28th 2014, when we again called for the holding of the bipartisan meeting. Apart from its reply to our initial letter, the PDP has not responded to our peace overtures till date,” APC said.

The party wrote that even if PDP fails to grant the meeting, The party will uphold its own end of the bargain in making sure its supporters avoid violence during and after the election.

They wrote: ”It is common knowledge that our supporters were shot at while travelling to Port Harcourt for the inaugural presidential campaign on Jan. 6th 2015. The police even prevented those of them who were hospitalized and treated for gunshot wounds from being discharged.

”Also, our office in Okrika was bombed on Jan. 11th 2015. Another major incident is the burning of the Jonathan campaign buses in Jos, which is a PDP-on-PDP violence in the wake of the intra-party crisis in Plateau after an apparently unpopular candidate was rigged in as the party’s governorship flag-bearer in the state. The APC had nothing to do with the Jos violence, even though the PDP has tried to spin it in order to portray our supporters as being behind it.

”Even then, our Presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, moved fast to condemn the violence in Jos. On the contrary, neither President Jonathan nor any of his party leaders has condemned the shooting of our supporters and the bombing of our office in Okrika,” the party said.

They accused the PDP of being the only party who would and will benefit from acts of violence.

With 31 days to the national elections, which puts General Muhammadu Buhari against President Goodluck Jonathan, Both parties are gearing up to what has been said to be one of the most important election in Nigeria’s history.