Presidency to supporters: don’t incite opposition

The Presidency has appealed to the supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari not to incite the opposition party to anger as they celebrate his victory in the February 23 Presidential election.

It also called on all candidates for the governorship and House of Assembly elections to measure their campaign words in order to ensure maintenance of peace better than what was experienced during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Congratulating the President and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for the victory at the poll, Enang said that those celebrating the success should be temperate and humble in order not to do anything that could infuriate the opposition.

He said, “Let me first of all congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the victory as president and vice president on the Next Level and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“What we as a government and a people should do is to ensure that our statements, our actions, our celebrations and our reaction to those who lost should be tempered, temperate, measured, humble and such that are not capable of inciting the other party to anger.”

He advised those that won as senators and members of the House of Representatives to talk to their followers to speak less and work more to bring about unity and integration of those who have lost.

“The real winners in this election are the Nigerian voters; and we are conscious that about 11 million people voted for the other party while 15 million voted for our party.

“For the incoming members of the National Assembly, first, for the members who have been re-elected; first as Senators and members of the House of Representatives is to congratulate them; for those who are elected new and are coming in, we congratulate and welcome them.

“We are praying that their actions should also be conciliatory. In the next election we are going in on March 9, next week, we should look at as a party and as a government, the areas and the pitfalls and address them so that there would be peaceful election.

“I will advise that all those who are going for the election, campaigning, the governorship candidates and the House of Assembly candidates who are going in for the elections, they should also measure their campaign words and they should maintain peace better than was maintained in the presidential and National Assembly elections.” he said

In the forthcoming governorship and house of assembly elections, he said, tempers would likely go high because the positions are closer to the people.

“This election is closer to the people; closer to the grassroots and tempers are likely to be higher, so they should measure their campaign actions and speeches,” he said.

Senator Enang commended the security agencies for maintaining peace during the exercise and appealed to them to maintain the tempo.

He said “The military agencies did well; they should maintain the tempo as they did so that their neutrality will be sustained; the police, the Army, NSCDC and all other security agencies should maintain absolute neutrality in that exercise; they should sustain that so that the credibility that has been given to this election by the monitors and the international community should be sustained.

“Finally, I will urge the opposition party which has lost the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) to be measured in their statements and reactions and their decisions. If they have grievance, let pursue the appropriate constitutional channel of a petition.”