Posted by By Our Reporter on
The Action Congress (AC) has dismissed as fake, the concern expressed by President Umar Yar'Adua in his speech in the United Kingdom that the Nigerian government does not recognise the recent election of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
The Action Congress (AC) has dismissed as fake, the concern expressed by President Umar Yar'Adua in his speech in the United Kingdom that the Nigerian government does not recognise the recent election of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
In a statement issued in Abuja by the party's National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the AC said President Yar'Adua is turning Nigeria into a laughing stock before the international community by the hypocrisy he demonstrates in the condemnation of Mugabe's controversial election.
'There is a moral contradiction here. A man with a log on his eyes is pointing at the speck on another man's eye.
'The whole world cannot forget in a hurry that President Yar'Adua was brought into office by one of the most fraudulent elections in modern history.
'No one who came into power through such a discredited and condemned election has the moral right to pontificate on credible elections.
'It is worse in the case of President Yar'Adua because all elections that have been conducted under his government have proved to be worse than the April 2007 election.
'The PDP has made a mess of the independence which the constitution granted the INEC. From one state to the other, Nigerians have witnessed the spectacle of INEC working in cahoot with the PDP to return the party to office in the places where the judicial tribunals have stood above board to order fresh elections.
'Even in President Yar'Adua's home state of Katsina, the government could not organise a free and fair local government election. In spite of spirited warnings by opposition parties, President Yar'Adua and his party returned a verdict at variance with the wishes of the electorate. In most places in the state, the voters did not have the ‘privilege' of sighting the ballot boxes and the ballot papers' votes. The PDP merely announced pre-determined results.
'The Action Congress takes serious objection to President Yar'Adua's seeming determination to turn Nigeria into a laughing stock in the international arena. The government is advised to remain silent where it has nothing edifying to say.
The claim that Nigeria does not recognise Mugabe's election, even as condemnable as Mugabe's purported election is, is not tenable and consistent with Yar'Adua's own appalling record in election matters. Yar'Adua and Mugabe belong to the same class of those who attained power by discredited and condemnable elections.