Democracy has declined under Buhari —Ayu

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, on Thursday in Abuja, claimed that the party won the 2019 presidential election.

He also argued that democratic values in Nigeria have steadily declined in the past seven years under the current regime.

Ayu said this when he received in audience a seven-person delegation of the European Union Election Observer Mission, led by its Chief Election Observer, Maria Arena.

According to a statement on Thursday by his Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy, Simon Imobo-Tswam, Ayu told the EU delegation that its report on the 2019 general elections reflected the drawbacks saying “we will keep complaining as long these undemocratic practices subsist.”

“We believe we won the 2019 presidential elections. We have the evidence. But justice was not done.

“Now that we are moving towards another election in 2023, it’s very important that we stress the need for the electoral umpire to be genuinely independent as its name implies,” he said.

He boasted that the PDP, in its 16 years in power, not only safeguarded Nigerian democracy, but also established institutions that strengthened it.

According to him, PDP “believes fiercely in democracy and its transparent processes.”

The former lawmaker also lamented that rather than improve on PDP’s legacy, Nigeria’s “hard-won democracy” was witnessing a steady depreciation under the APC.

“We are worried that instead of strengthening the democratic process, which will better serve the people, we are seeing a sustained decline in those democratic practices; the conduct of compromised elections, the use of security agents to attack judges, to attack citizens instead of protecting them, and to subvert the electoral processes.

“We have evidence and we stand by our position. These are not just empty pronouncements.”

The National Secretary of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Dr John Akpanudoedehe, neither picked his calls not responded to a text message sent to him for reaction on Thursday.