The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council has called on the presidential candidates of Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his counterpart for the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, to accept defeat by calling to congratulate the APC flag bearer, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The APC PCC Special Adviser on Media and Strategic Communications, Dele Alake, made the call at a press conference in Abuja to address the calls for the Independent National Electoral Commission results to cancel the election.
The development is coming in the wake of the demand by the PDP, LP and the African Democratic Congress for INEC National Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, to step aside.
The three parties had in a joint press conference on Tuesday alleged that the February 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections were marred with violence, rigging and intimidation of voters.
In the same vein, the PDP vice presidential candidate, Ifeanyi Okowa, had asked Yakubu to cancel the results of Saturday’s elections.
Okowa claimed that there was no transparency in the process because the results were not transmitted electronically from polling units.
But the APC PCC rejected the call and rather urged Atiku and Obi to borrow a leaf from former President Goodluck Jonathan, who, in 2015, called to congratulate the APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, even before INEC finished announcing the results of the election.
He said, “We call on Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, to emulate former President Goodluck Jonathan by conceding defeat. This election has already been won by our candidate, according to the results declared at the collation centres in the state. In 2015, President Jonathan did not wait for INEC to finish collation before he called President Muhammadu Buhari and congratulated him in the true spirit of democracy and sportsmanship.
“We urge Atiku Abubakar and Obi to follow the same path of honour, instead of attempting to heat the polity via the reckless statements by surrogates. Let Atiku and Obi call Tinubu now.”
Alake, an ex-Lagos commissioner, took a swipe at former President Olusegun Obasanjo for literally calling for the cancellation of last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
According to him, Obasanjo’s demand was anchored on unsubstantiated claims, rumours and allegations of fraud by the opposition parties after observing that they have lost the election.
While saying he was disappointed in the elder statesman’s statement, the PCC Special Adviser on Media noted that even Obasanjo himself once admitted in an interview that there is no ‘perfect’ electoral system anywhere in the world.
“The APC-PCC wants to say emphatically that former President Obasanjo has no moral right to meddle in this election, let alone calling for its cancellation because he is an interested party having publicly, on January 1, this year, endorsed the candidate of Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi,” Alake said.
