The Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s calls for the cancellation of the February 25 general election as frivolous.
The APC campaign council said Obasanjo’s admonition to President Muhammadu Buhari to take urgent steps to address the concerns raised over the result of Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections in the country is a coup against democracy and the constitution.
The council stated that Obasanjo should be condemned and ignored, adding that the former President is full of mischief.
Obasanjo had, in a letter on Monday, advised Buhari and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, that to avoid setting the country on fire, all elections that do not pass the credibility and transparency test be cancelled.
Reacting to the development, the Special Adviser, Media, Communications and Public Affairs, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Alake, in a statement issued on Monday, said the former President repeated without evidence “rumours” that the Bimodal Voter Verification System (BVAS) was compromised and that the election results announced by INEC were fraudulent.
Alake stated: “It is tragic that a former President who ought to be a statesman in comportment and speech will recklessly seek to endanger and derail our democratic process for utterly selfish, egoistic, and malicious reasons. He offers not a single credible piece of evidence to prove his laughable and ridiculous allegations against INEC and the credibility of the ongoing process.
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“Of course, we are all aware that Obasanjo is not an impartial and disinterested party as far as this election is concerned. On January 1, 2023, he had issued a characteristically lengthy epistle to Nigerians endorsing the candidacy of Mr Peter Obi and asking Nigerian youths to vote en masse for him.
“Of course, our reaction was that the former President was entitled to his view and that the outcome of the elections would demonstrate if he had any electoral value. As fate would have it, Peter Obi was defeated even in Obasanjo’s own polling unit in Abeokuta in Ogun State. But it is now obvious that the only election Obasanjo will agree to being free, fair and credible is one that produces Obi as winner which is ridiculous.
“Is Obasanjo also querying the outcome of the presidential elections in Lagos or Delta where Obi won? If the outcome in Lagos won by Obi is free and credible, on what basis is he querying the outcome of the elections in other places? This is pure mischief and sheer hypocrisy.
“Obasanjo wants President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in an undemocratic manner to truncate the ongoing political process just the way he did most shamelessness in the 2003 and 2007 elections widely described as the worst in our political history.
“This is an election in which Asiwaju Tinubu, for instance, has lost in Lagos state in his South West region while Atiku and Obi have also won elections outside their own regional bases. No true democrat must seek an abortion of the process just because he believes the elections are not going his way.
“What Obasanjo is subtly calling for in his nefarious statement is a coup against democracy and the constitution. He should be roundly condemned and severely ignored.
“The constitution has stipulated processes for seeking redress against electoral malpractices in the past and these have been tested several times and used to redress electoral injustice where such has been proven. Nigerians must reject Obasanjo’s dubious and hypocritical advice and stay strictly and firmly on the path of constitutionalism and democratic due process,” the statement read.
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