We are not surprised at Lemu panel's report -PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),on Tuesday, said that it was not surprised at the report of the Post-Election Violence Committee which fingered the the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), as the mastermind of the violence which erupted in some states in northern parts of the country after the April 16 presidential election.Speaking with journalists at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, venue of the presidential election petition tribunal, the national publicity secretary of the party, Professor Ru'fai Alkali, said that the post-election violence and civil disturbances that greeted the April 16, 2011 presidential election was pre-meditated.The party also maintained that the utterances of Major-General Buhari allegedly fuelled the violence.It, however, praised the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu-led presidential panel on the violence for doing a good job that would help the nation to curb future occurrences.Professor Alkali said that PDP would immediately study the report and come out in clear terms in its own position.Besides, he disclosed that the violence emanated from the states where CPC had larger votes and later escalated to others with wanton destruction of life and property in the mayhem allegedly perpetrated by those he called misguided elements.However, the national chairman of the CPC, Prince Tony Momoh, said that his party's presidential candidate was never indicted by the Lemu-led panel's report.At a separate interview with journalists, Momoh said that the Lemu panel only observed that certain utterances by some leaders caused the post-election violence.'Major-General Buhari only said in Kaduna that people should come out to vote and protect their votes,' adding that former President Olusegun Obasanjo made similar utterances too. So, Major-General Buhari could not have been indicted because he never told anybody to go and embark on violence and destruction of life and property.'Adams Oshiomhole, in his own utterances, asked the people to go and vote and that if their votes were stolen, they should kill the thieves,' the CPC boss said.
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