The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), for the post-election violence of 2011.

Speaking at a news briefing in Abuja on Sunday, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, said international focus was on Buhari for the 2011 post-election violence.

He expressed hopes that Buhari would be brought to justice “for the violence unleashed on innocent Nigerians by his supporters.”

Dutch lawyers with the ICC are also pushing the trial of Buhari.

Mr. Fani-Kayode also said that Buhari’s appearance at the Chatham House in London on Thursday was a last minute decoy.

The PDP presidential campaign spokesman said Buhari hurriedly arranged the Chatham House lectures to divert the attention of Nigerians and the whole world from the fact that his trip to London was mainly to seek medical attention and care.

General Buhari had told Channels Television that he traveled to the European City to find “some relative peace,” debunked claims that he was in London for a medical trip.

“After visiting 35 states and holding town hall meetings in Lagos, Kano and Abuja and having forced on me six weeks of holidays, I have to come away from Nigeria to get some relative peace . . . that is what brought me here,” he said, in an exclusive interview with Channels Television in London.

In January, a Dutch lawyer at the International Criminal Court said he had “evidence showing General Buhari instigating and inciting violence that led to the killings of some 800 people after he lost 2011 elections.”

“There are references to lynching, there’s a reference to killing,” Goran Sluiter, a human rights lawyer who represents complaints to the ICC, said of video recordings of General Buhari

Buhari’s campaign group denied the allegations, saying: “This is all part of the campaign to stop Buhari at all cost.”

It said the violence was “a spontaneous reaction to perceived electoral shenanigans.”

•Adapted from a Channels TV report. Photo shows Buhari.

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