The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised alarm over unrelenting disposition of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to attain a one-party state, saying that democracy is under severe attack in Nigeria.
PDP, therefore, called on Nigerians and the global community to rise together to oppose what it described as ignoble trip towards electoral authoritarianism.
The party was responding to the news of the formal defection of the Governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminalayi Fubara from the party to the ruling APC.
PDP, in a statement on Tuesday by the National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong, said “the news as pitiful as it is, is an exemplar of the old legal maxim Volenti non fit injuria, meaning “to one who is willing, no harm can be done”.
The party noted that everyone who has followed the developments that culminated in the uneventful defection, would recall that the Governor willingly travelled the path that took him to this destination.
PDP said having done so voluntarily, he cannot turn around and accuse the party, or any other person or group of abandoning or not protecting him.
It said while a person who is at a crossroad of threats of existential proportion, would most likely suffer from temporary amnesia caused by trauma, the Governor should have nothing less than praise for the party, civil society organisations, and all Nigerians who freely stood up in his defence since this crisis started until he capitulated.
“It is our prayer that the Governor should not suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, where a victim falls in love with his captor. In all, despite these, we pity the Governor and wish him well,” the PDP noted.
The party noted that “the Rivers situation is a testament to the dysfunctional nature of our democracy, where individuals are bigger and stronger than institutions and can use the apparatus of the Federal Government to obfuscate political life out of their opponents and bring them to their knees.
“Democracy is terribly threatened by acts of this kind, and all well-meaning people should unify in condemning this progressive decline of democratic norms.”
