PDP cautions APC, presidency over alleged third term agenda

Assurances not enough, arrest agitators, HURIWA tells Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday cautioned the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Presidency against purported plans to push a third term agenda for President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, it described the alleged plot as a dangerous underhand politics capable of derailing Nigeria’s democracy.

It also described the statements from the presidency and the APC as an unhealthy ploy to introduce a repugnant issue into the official discourse in a bid to give it life and achieve its fruition in the nation’s politics.

“It is preposterous for the Presidency cabal and the APC to think that Nigerians cannot see through their shenanigan to import and elevate what they labelled as rumour and internet-based gossip, into the official national discourse.

“Our party notes that Nigerians will not be surprised when, after the statements by the Presidency and APC, new groups surfaced to orchestrate more forceful agitations in the public space for the alteration of the 1999 Constitution to achieve an ignoble aim,” the statement added.

The party urged President Muhammadu Buhari to speak out and immediately call his supporters to order as Nigerians would not allow anybody, no matter how highly placed, to alter any part of the constitution to serve a selfish interest.

Besides, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has sought the arrest and prosecution of campaigners and sponsors of third term for President Buhari because what they were advocating was treasonable and amounts to constitutional coup plotting.

HURIWA said any campaign sponsored by forces within the current government for the constitutional term limits for political office of president of Nigeria to be extended constituted an offence against the Nigerian people and capable of truncating constitutional democracy.

The group insisted that such moves should not be swept under the carpet or explained away through presidential media propaganda.

In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group cited Chapter 6, Part 1, section 137(1)(b) of the Constitution, which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of president if he has been elected to the office at any two previous elections.

Meanwhile, the South East Zone wing of the Zikist-Buharist Movement (ZBM) has applauded President Buhari for rejecting the third term gambit being proposed by anti-democrats and unpatriotic elements.
The presidency had on Tuesday through the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Garba Shehu, distanced the President from the alleged third term agenda.
Shehu said the Presidency had always maintained that President Buhari was a convert democrat and like most converts was fanatical and could not support any move that would altering the 1999 Constitution to stretch his tenure beyond a two-term limit.
Reacting in a statement by the Chairman, Stanley Ohajuruka and Secretary, Godwin Onwusi, commended President Buhari for rejecting third term gambit, saying it was being proposed by the infamous banana peel anti-democrats and unpatriotic elements, whose sole objective was to truncate the nation’s democracy and tarnish the President’s image.