The Peoples Democratic Party has lauded the Senate for rejecting Lauretta Onochie as a national commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

WuzupNigeria had reported that the Senate revealed that Onochie was rejected because she is from the same state as an INEC Commissioner from Delta State, Mrs Agbamuche-Mbu, and not based on political affiliation.

However, the PDP, in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that the decision is a victory for Nigerians and democracy, noting that it saved the country from a serious crisis.

Onochie’s nomination by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) in October 2020 had attracted backlash from the public, including members of the opposition who claimed she is a card-carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Ologbondiyan said that the “rejection of Lauretta Onochie by Nigerians has saved the nation from very serious crisis as well as salvaged INEC and the entire Nigerian electoral process from a ruinous pollution that would have led to the collapse of our democratic order.”

“Onochie’s vexatious nomination, in total affront to paragraph 14 of the 3rd schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), was a very dangerous machination by the Buhari-led APC Presidency against our electoral process, in the attempt to subvert the will of the people in the 2023 elections.”

He alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) of plotting to rig the 2023 general elections, noting that the ruling party “is aware that it will have difficulties winning election at any level in a free, fair and credible election.”

“It is clear that the APC is pushing for the prohibition of electronic transmission of results because it seeks to use its usual malpractices alteration of figures, switching of results as well as disappearance of ballot materials while on transit to collation centers to, again, subvert the will of the people and manipulate its hold on power in 2023.

“Our party, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Nigerian people, will use every means available and permissible under our laws to ensure that such provision that seeks to institutionalize and endorse rigging is not allowed to pass.

“The PDP, therefore, counsels the APC to read the handwriting on the wall and know that Nigerians are ready and waiting to resist them at any turn ahead of the 2023 election,” the statement read in part.