JUST IN: PDP tells international community to slam visa ban on Buhari, family after handover to Tinubu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the international community to impose a travel ban on President Muhammadu Buhari after he leaves office on May 29. Addressing a press conference on Friday in Abuja, Debo Ologunagba, PDP spokesperson, alleged that Buhari undermined democracy by not giving Nigerians free and credible elections. The opposition party also asked the international community to impose travel sanctions on Bubari’s immediate family. The party said the demand was necessary over the President’s comments on the 2023 elections, saying he was gloating over Nigeria’s worst election in recent memory. PDP is responding to claims by President Buhari that the opposition lost the 2023 elections to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, because of overconfidence and lack of strategy. The PDP further accused the President of attempting to bully the judiciary, which is currently handling electoral petitions, into giving legitimacy to a clearly flawed election, asking that the sanctions be extended to all those involved in manipulating the outcome of the 2023 elections. According to Ologunagba, “We are not willing to surrender the mandate freely given to our party by the people irrespective of the threats, bullying and manipulation by the APC-led administration. “Having clearly undermined democracy in Nigeria, the PDP calls on the International Community to accordingly impose sanctions, including visa ban and travel restrictions, on President Buhari and his family immediately he vacates office on May 29. “This demand for sanction is in line with President Buhari’s request on February 17, 2022 in Brussels, Belgium, wherein he called on the European Union (EU) to impose ‘weighty sanctions’ on those engaged in ‘unconstitutional change of governments’ as well as those influencing the ‘process and outcomes of elections’. “The PDP also demands an open investigation into the roles played by President Buhari in the undermining of democracy in Nigeria in the 2019 and 2023 Presidential elections.”