National Peace C’ttee panel meets Buhari over Atiku’s grievances


…We’ll challenge presidential poll results in court, PDP insists
The National Peace Committee (NPC) led by former Head of State, General Absulsalami Abubakar (rtd), has met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja where it tabled the concerns raised by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over the results of last week Saturday’s presidential election.

This is even as the PDP insisted on Friday that it will challenge the results of the presidential election in court, adding that and nobody can stop it from doing so.

President Buhari was declared winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after polling 15,191,847 votes to defeat the candidate of the PDP, Atiku, who scored 11, 262, 978 votes.

Speaking to State House Correspondents after the meeting which lasted for about an hour, General Abdulsalami acknowledged that the results of the elections have raised a lot of dust with divergent grievances across the polity.

The former Head of State, however, said he was pleased with the news that the PDP has decided to approach the court to seek redress.

“As much as we have grievances, l am glad that the PDP say they are going to court to challenge the process. l think this is the right way to go about it, and l hope and pray that we will maintain this,” he said.

General Abdulsalami confirmed that members of his panel had met with the presidential candidate of the PDP who raised concerns contrary to the reported conditions as being speculated.

He said: “The Presidential election result has raised a lot of dust and the people feel aggrieved. Yesterday (Thursday) l met the PDP Presidential candidate and his party in order to ensure that this peace committee ensures that really, our concern is about Nigeria.

“Atiku presented his grievances and his observations, he did not present any conditions, he gave his complaints, which we have come to present and discuss with Mr. President to see what can be done.

“And in order to listen to their grievances and what they think has gone wrong and we are here today to see his Excellency, the President in order to relay the fears and concerns of the PDP and Mr. President he listened to us and has taken note of what we have told him.”

Abdulsalami, who was in the Villa with John Cardinal Onaiyekan and the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Mathew Hassan Kukah, urged Nigerians to always explore peaceful means regardless of the outcome of elections.

“Nigerians should please on behalf of this country and all of us, regardless, we need peace. This country is very, very important to all of us. We are not talking about self-interest, we are talking about the interest of the country.

“I keep saying, whenever there is violence, we are not going to see violence in Ikoyi, in the Villa and you will not find violence in the various government houses in this country. It is always the poor man that get to kill themselves and so on,” he added.

Meanwhile, contrary to media report of being prevailed upon by the National Peace Committee, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Friday, insisted that it will challenge the results of the Presidential election in court and nobody can stop it from doing so.

The PDP also said it had no agreement with the Gen. Abdudalam-led Committee during a meeting on Friday.

The National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, said the position of the party has not changed and cannot be changed by any negotiation with anybody or institution.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Friday, the chairman said the party stated its grievances as requested by the Committee which promised to listen to the All Progressives Congress (APC) without arm-twisting the party to drop its intended legal action.

Explaining the details of the meeting between PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the party leadership and members of the Peace Committee; Gen. Abdusalam Abubakar (rtd), Cardinal John Onaiyekan and Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, he said: “When they came, they met with us and they requested us to please state our grievances.

“There was no condition. Initially, we were not to talk with them because a decision had been taken to go to court. But because of the personalities involved, we said okay, let’s just talk.

“It was no condition. There was no request of any condition.

“We made it clear that unless the injustices are addressed, there is no room for peace. It is only when you address the injustice that you can now sit down for peace.

“So, whatever interpretation that was done by anybody, let it be clear to anybody that we did not give condition, they did not request for it. It was like, look, state what really happened in the election and we told them how the military took over the election and conducted the election in favour of APC and INEC collusion”.

Secondus further insisted on the party’s position, saying “We will go to court. Nobody will stop us from going to court and bring all of the facts both the international observers and some people have not seen.

“We will unearth them at the courts and I believe that justice will be done at the courts.

“Because if we continue to suppress injustice and go sentimental, the country will continue to pile on gun powder that will explode one day.

“So much injustices have been done in this country and if we allow it and it continues to pile, nobody knows what will happen.

“So, that’s why we decided as good citizens and law-abiding and people who believe in rule of law that we will go,” he added.

Commenting on reports of the election observers that the February 23 election was peacefully conducted, the chairman said the observers probably were frightened by threat by the Kano State governor, Nasir el-Rufai.

He said: “We are not going to depend on approaching the courts on the comments of observers that were threatened.

“They were threatened and so, what do you expect them to say? They have to go home with their lives. They were threatened and silenced”.

He said militarisation of the election accounted for low turnout of voters in the South South where there was killing and suppression of voters.

He said: “The military were dragged into the election to suppress and scare away voters and facilitate rigging. That is how you hear ridiculously that war-torn Borno and Yobe states recorded higher percentage in voter turnout than some states in the South South geo- political zone.

“Shamelessly, they have again started mobilising to use the same military to forcefully take over for APC two PDP states in the South South and one state in the South East.

“Credible intelligence available to the party showed that the ruling party’s main link in INEC met with party’s leadership as well as the military to review the planned strategy to take over these states.

He added that while the military was suppressing voters in PDP stronghold areas in the South, a different abracadabra was going on in some northern states particularly in Kano, Yobe, Borno and Zamfara states where numbers refuse to add up.

“In Borno, Yobe and Zamfara states, confirmed report shows that there was non-compliance in the use of Smart card reader as approved by INEC rules.

“The same applies to cancelled votes. In Nasarawa State, over 115,000 votes cancelled, Kogi 79,000 votes, Plateau 30,000 votes indicating that these high incidence of vote cancellation were designed to suppress the margin of victory in PDP strong holds,” the PDP national chairman stated.