Opposition political parties have claimed they had uncovered an alleged plan by the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress to deploy soldiers and police to rig the general elections.
National spokesman for the Coalition of United Political Parties, Imo Ugochinyere, made the allegation in a statement on Wednesday.
He said, “The outgoing APC government is planning to deploy special forces led by the army and police to help them make their rigging of the elections easier.
“The President earlier in the week bragged about how he gave instructions to his security (agencies) to kill anyone caught snatching ballot boxes, whereas it is a ploy to kill innocent Rivers people who will resist their rigging plan under the guise of tagging them ‘ballot snatchers’.
“We have credible intelligence that the army leadership was told to aid APC thugs to write fake results and smuggle them into the collation centres.
“The opposition also have it on good authority that the army is planning to abduct opposition leaders in Rivers State on Friday night, and seal all local government collation centres to allow only APC agents switch results, thereby reducing the votes of the opposition.
“We wish to let the army know that if they plan to compromise Rivers elections and write fake results, it will be deemed as an invitation to anarchy, and the opposition will not for any reason accept any election rigging nor tolerate an intimidation of any sort from them.”
Ugochinyere, who urged Nigerians not to fear, added, “This is the final battle, do not be discouraged, this government has shown you what they are made of, it is time for you to show them that the voices of the people matter by voting them out on Saturday and get Nigeria working again.
“We call on President Buhari to stop his pretentious lifestyle, retract his statements and desist from further trying to incite violence.
“We challenge him to engage the opposition’s consensus candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in a free and fair contest and simply concede defeat when he loses.”