The Labour Party also said it would not be needing the assistance of any party, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to prove its case as suggested by Onanuga and APC.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The Labour Party has said it would not accept insinuations by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that it shares common grounds with the ruling party because it won in some states during the February 25 poll.
The media team of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation, in a statement on Saturday, insisted the APC’s Bola Tinubu was forced on the Nigerian people by INEC.
“We view with non-amusement the recent press statement by the All Progressives Congress (APC) signed by Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity of its campaign organisation, where the party sought vainly to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians, by using the dubious components of a clearly rigged election, to attempt to tarnish the unimpeachable image of Mr. Peter Obi, our presidential candidate,” the statement read.
“It has been 72 hours since the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in what will surely go down in history as a most bizarre act of electoral fraud and chicanery, foisted APC’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu on Nigerians, as their elected president, despite his obvious and well independently, documented rejection, by the people on 25th February.
“Since this unsettling declaration as winner of a charade, as supervised by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and his men, and which has rightly been condemned by millions of Nigerians and also by international observers, the APC and its candidate, Bola Tinubu, have remained restless, because they have murdered peace.
“So, not surprisingly, yesterday, March 2, 2023, soon after our presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi reaffirmed that he indeed won the election, and declared his intention to proceed to court to retrieve his mandate, the APC camp panicked again, with Onanuga’s incongruous press statement.
“What may be gleaned by Mr Onanuga’s empty and futile attempt to throw truth on its head, is that Mr Obi was declared 3rd, so he has no standing to contest the results, that many prominent parties and personalities lost their states and contested seats, so, therefore, the elections were free and fair, and that Mr Peter Obi and the Labour Party swept the elections in the southeast, so it was an indication of fairness.
“It is important to underline, for the benefit of Mr Onanuga and anyone else, who may be caught in similar shallow and deceitful analysis, that our objection to the criminal operation on 25th February is fundamental and total, based not on diversionary sentiment, but on thousands of well-documented evidence, which do not need much searching or advanced intelligence, to obtain or comprehend.
“What we seek, simply, is that the true results, as recorded by Nigerian voters, in the polling booths, be processed, as required by law, by instantly transmitting them to the INEC server and thereafter being reflected on the IREV before declaration, as they form the primary record of the election, for all tabulation, collation and declaration.
“The idea of criminally withholding passwords, inflation, alteration, substitution, manipulation and fabrication of voting figures and Form EC8A, outside this simple process, remains an illegality, even where they have been criminally crafted for the Labour Party to maintain its deserved lead, at any subunit of the election.
“It is clear that we have little grounds in common with Onanuga or the APC, to begin to discuss or compare notes on this election; as far as he is concerned, the fact that Labour Party won in some declared results, should forestall a challenge to an election that was overwhelmed by irregularities, from top to bottom. This has no basis, in reason.”
The party also rejected the narrative that the Obi/Datti ticket did not win the required spread of 25% in 24 states, or that it did not win enough votes in the northern states.
“The evidence is consistent that the same brazen alteration of votes, and non-transmission of polling booth results, occurred all across the country, including the Northern States,” it said.
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“There is abundant evidence that the votes were systematically altered and reduced in these states, with the particular aim of denying our ticket its duly earned 25% and higher, in those states.
“Ordinarily, it is not in our nature to respond to every diatribe, especially of misguided deceit.
“However, where the line between truth and falsehood, as well as between fact and fiction, have become so thin, it is incumbent on us, to set the records straight, lest the APC known for their penchant for half-truths, deflect attention from their misadventure of February 25, which has cast a pall over the entire nation.
“For a party, which has spent the last eight years in power, destroying every fabric of national unity, pauperizing Nigerians and pillaging the national treasury through greedy and unconscionable officials, to try to paint our Presidential Candidate with the same paint of ethnic and religious divisionism, which is their trademark, is not only despicable but unconscionable.
“The truth that stares every Nigerian starkly is that Mr. Obi is a Nigerian with reach across, religious and ethnic divides, and this reflected clearly in his performance in the February 25 election despite the manipulations of the APC and the incompetent handling and delivery of INEC.
“Whereas Mr. Tinubu, who many of his followers and APC members had described, as the ‘Builder’ and ‘Landlord’ of Lagos, was roundly defeated by Mr. Obi, in the very state he served two terms, and neither could he secure the required 25 percent of the votes in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
“We advise the APC and its members to get ready to give cogent reasons to the Election Tribunal, how, despite being roundly rejected in many key states at the polls, by Nigerians, it magically emerged winner in the election, through declaration, by Professor Mahmood Yakubu.
“We have cast-iron evidence from polling units across the country, to prove that we won overwhelmingly, and we will prove our case beyond any possible doubt.”
The Labour Party also said it would not be needing the assistance of any party, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to prove its case as suggested by Onanuga and APC.
“No doubt these elections have brought great shame on our country, but we cannot afford, but to seek to redeem in entirety, the will of the people, as freely expressed last Saturday, and as criminally repressed by the riggers and their conspirators.
“For us at the Labour Party and the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation, we are irrevocably focused on reclaiming that mandate freely given to us by Nigerians, but stolen in a most unintelligent, shameless and brazen manner by the APC.
“And this we will achieve, for the sanctity of the Electoral process, for the hopes of the millions of Youth and the people, who came forward to vote with all determination…and for the future of our children, threatened by the machinations of evil men. Over them, we shall prevail as a Nation,” it added.
