Pursue your grievances in court with decorum – APC PCC tells Atiku, Obi

BY TOM OKPE

All Progressives Congress (APC), Presidential Campaign Council, (PCC), has urged Presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party (LP), counterpart, Peter Obi, to pursue their grievances with decorum.

The campaign Council also said the complaints by the candidates of the two opposition parties over electronic transmission of the last Saturday Presidential election result, in the country is not supported by law.

The candidates of the PDP and LP had on Thursday rejected result of the Presidential election vowing to challenge the ruling party’s candidate, Tinubu’s victory in Court.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC was declared winner of the last Saturday Presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu on Wednesday, 1st March, 2023.

In a press conference on Friday, at the Party Campaign Council Abuja, Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Dele Alake, said the claim that INEC did not use the BVAs is false, adding that those who voted across Nigeria, including Atiku and Obi, were accredited by BVAs saying: “Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi should pursue their grievances in court with decorum.”

Alake said: “We must say, however, that listening to both Atiku and Obi yesterday, (Thursday) left us in the APC family confounded. We understand that there has been an orchestrated campaign by the acolytes of PDP and LP in the media to discredit the Presidential election.

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“What we did not expect is that the two presidential candidates and, indeed, their political parties, would shamefully re-echo the puerile and unimaginative arguments that are being canvassed by political illiterates and mischief-makers who are crying wolf on the social media.

“As we can see, these two, otherwise experienced politicians are pinpointing lack of adherence to guidelines as basis for discrediting votes lawfully cast by Nigerians.

“We shall examine the so-called process that was purportedly breached by the electoral body and how, in their wild imagination, undermined the credibility of the election.

“The complaint over the electronic transmission of the result is not supported by law. Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 referred to, by the PDP and LP has nothing to do with transmission of election results.

“Section 60, subsection 2 of the Act deals with transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.

“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in anyway change the results that have been announced, right after the counting in the presence of the parties’ agents and to the hearing of the voters.

“It is, therefore, nonsensical to insinuate that time variation in uploading results would cause a change in the figures.”

The PCC further stressed that the 2023 Presidential election is a watershed as it produced unprecedented outcomes and defied conventions adding that; “deployment and use of BVAS is the only reason, the elections produced these strange outcomes and upsets in many cases.

“The loss of Katsina and Lagos to PDP and LP respectively were contrary to expectations. BVAS brought the intended credibility to voters’ accreditation such that many governors and well-established politicians lost elections in what should be safe areas.

“The era of ghost-voting and snatching of ballot boxes is gone. Experience in the last governorship election in Osun State has shown, over-voting would automatically lead to outright cancellation of results of polling units based on provision of the new Electoral Act,” he stated noting that the APC train has left the station, “as we continue our effort to make Nigeria better for all Nigerians,” he added.