The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has declared his readiness to defend his declaration as the winner of the February 25 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Tinubu said the decision of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, to seek redress in court is a welcome development, saying the move is better than directing party supporters to protest and instigate social unrest.

Tinubu maintained that he won the just concluded presidential election, adding that the poll was free and fair.

Obi, while speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, said the Labour Party won the February 25, 2023, presidential election.

The LP presidential standard bearer said he will prove the party won the just concluded presidential election to Nigerians, adding that he will explore all legal means to recover his mandate.

Reacting to the development, Tinubu, in a statement issued on Thursday by the Director, Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, said: “We welcome the decision of Mr Obi to seek redress in court as an aggrieved party if he is convinced of the evidence of electoral fraud he will present before the tribunal as alleged.

“Going to court is part of the electoral process and it is the most decent, statesmanlike and civilised course of action to take. We salute the decision. It is surely better than calling supporters to the streets and instigating social unrest.

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“Before Mr Obi goes to court, we consider it necessary to challenge some specific claims in his press address.

“Contrary to his statement, it is not true that the election held on 25 February was not free and fair.

“The 2023 election is one of the most transparent and peaceful elections in the history of Nigeria. It is because the process was credible that made it possible for Mr Obi’s Labour Party to record the over six million votes it got contrary to pre-election forecast.

“That Labour Party and Mr Obi surprised bookmakers by winning in Lagos State, Nasarawa, Plateau, Delta and Edo where there are sitting governors of either the All Progressives Congress or the Peoples Democratic Party.

“Those governors have entrenched political machinery. That Obi won attests to the credibility of the election process. In those states, most of the sitting governors contested election to go to the Senate and lost to little-known candidates of Labour Party.

“The Labour Party also swept the entire five South East states under the control of either APGA, PDP or APC.

“We believe that the Labour Party Presidential Candidate contradicted himself and exposed himself to public ridicule by suggesting that the election was only credible in states and places his party won,” Onanuga said.

Onanuga noted that Obi would also need to defend in court how the Labour Party won over 90 per cent of votes in the South-East region of the country “while other parties got almost nothing”.

“We have evidence of voters suppression, intimidation and harassment in South-East, especially of those who came out to vote for our party.

“Also when Mr Obi gets to court, he will have to convince the court with his allegation of rigging in over 40,000 polling units across the country, especially in North-West and North-East where his party had no party agents and did not sign result sheets as required by law.

“It is our assumption that Labour Party will enlist PDP agents to prove its fraud claims since it is an affiliate of PDP,” he added.

The spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council stressed that Obi didn’t win the 2023 presidential election “because he had no path to winning a national election in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria where a candidate running in a national election must appeal to the cross-section of our pluralistic society.”

The Star