PDP insists Atiku won presidential vote, says result rigged for Tinubu
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Atiku Abubakar won the presidential election on February 25, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has insisted in its latest riposte to Information Minister Lai Mohammed, whom the party accused of committing subjudice over the case at the tribunal.
PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba described in Abuja claims by Mohammed that the opposition lost the election as subjudice and part of attempts by the APC government to bully and blackmail the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT).
“Nigerians are invited to note that Lai Mohammed’s comment is coming after President Buhari made a similar subjudice comment in his widely condemned attempt to justify the rigging of the presidential election, which case is pending before the tribunal,” Ologunagba said.
“It is indeed appalling that Lai Mohammed could attempt to defend the outcome of a fraudulently conducted election which has been adjudged as the worst in the history of elections in Nigeria and which has attracted nationwide and international outrage against the Buhari administration.
“By stating that President Buhari deserved ‘accolades’ for conducting a globally condemned presidential election and describing well-meaning Nigerians as “shameless sore losers”, Lai Mohammed has further confirmed the complicity of the Buhari administration, in which he serves as mouthpiece, in one of the most reprehensible election swindles in the history of democracy.”
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Buhari administration ‘notorious for lying, deceit, and falsehood’
Ologunagba said it is not surprised Mohammed continues in the trajectory of the Buhari administration which is notorious for lying, deceit, and falsehood, per reporting by Vanguard.
Because Nigerians are aware that by the authentic results obtained from polling units, he argued, Atiku, not APC candidate Bola Tinubu, met all the conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election.
In Ologunagba’s view, this explained why “the compromised Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to transmit directly and announce results as obtained from the polling units as required by law.
“The facts of the rigging of the February 25, 2023 presidential election are well known to Nigerians and the PDP will not relent until it reclaims its mandate at the tribunal.”
Lai says opposition parties deserve to lose
Ologunagba was reacting to the latest comment by Mohammed that the opposition should stop their endless complaints over the election which they lost woefully, saying they deserve to lose because of their over-confidence and complacency.
Mohammed insisted in a statement issued in Abuja that the reasons for their loss are incontrovertible.
He said Buhari deserves nothing but accolades for delivering the best election in Nigeria’s history, and the tempestuous but predictable reaction to Buhari’s comments by the opposition shows them for what they are: shameless sore losers.
“President Muhammadu Buhari lived up to his billing by delivering a free, fair and credible election, and his legacy is assured. The President would rather lose his state and many of his party’s strongholds than tamper with the fidelity of the election, and that is why he provided a level playing field for all parties,’’ Mohammed argued.
He said the opposition’s over-confidence going into the ballot stemmed in part from the blitzkrieg of social media propaganda coupled with faulty and procured opinion polls meant to hoodwink their foreign backers,
He insisted Tinubu won the election fair and square, clinching the majority of the votes cast and surpassing the constitutionally-stipulated 25 per cent of votes cast in at least two-thirds of all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“Going by the results, none of the opposition parties met any of the conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election. They didn’t even come close, in spite of their pre-election grandstanding.
“They keep leaning on some international observers to justify their fraudulent claim that the election was rigged.
“They conveniently forgot what Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the revered US diplomat who co-led the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) International Election Observation Mission to Nigeria, said: that the APC candidate undoubtedly won the polls.
“They also forgot that the African Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria said the atmosphere was generally calm and peaceful in 95% of the polling units visited.’’
According to Mohammed, it is on the strength of these reports that many nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, wasted no time in congratulating the victorious APC presidential candidate.
He slammed the opposition for continuously seeking to mislead the world by clutching at the weak straw that results were not immediately uploaded onto the INEC IReV portal, as if the portal had any role to play in the collation of results.
“The opposition’s insinuation that the failure to immediately upload the result of the presidential election onto IReV affected the credibility of the election is a fraud. It is an act of blackmail and deceit by desperate individuals.
“The opposition Labour Party, in particular, will go down in the history books as the first-ever distant third-place finisher in a presidential election anywhere to have bold-facedly claimed victory.”