A political activist, Dr Sani Adamu has described the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as an icon of democracy who’s fighting for the interest of Nigerians and not for himself.
ATIKU ABUBAKAR -THE ICON OF DEMOCRACY IS FIGHTING FOR US AND NOT HIMSELF
Gentlemen of the Press,
The recent Presidential election in Nigeria has brought to the fore, what is good, bad, and ugly in most of us .
It has redefined what integrity and capacity to govern and deliver services and economic development of our Country. It also mercilessly attempted to change the Psyche of our citizens to find Accomodation in poverty, with the “live within your means” mantra of the APC Presidential candidate- Mohammadu Buhari. This same APC and Mohammadu Buhari move Bullion vans full of Billions of Naira around the Country in Airplanes to buy votes and corrupt the system. Armed soldiers and Policemen were deployed heavily in PDP strongholds to intimidate and carry out whatever they wanted to skew the elections in favor of APC. They also apply a different tactics in APC strongholds, where they either thumb printed the ballot papers and stuffed them in the ballot box, or they out rightly ignored the ballot papers and simply filled the result sheets with numbers that fancy them and ensure overwhelming votes beyond the ordinary. What Atiku Abubakar and the PDP did was to ensure that all these acts of vote rigging was recorded for posterity. It has also truly tested the institutions of governance and the security services.
The Comrades of yesteryears have been intoxicated by power and have elevated corruption to a higher level. It has made nonsense of gentlemen and Statesmen. In fact if this is what this generation will bequeath to the next generation, then this Country is doomed. I wish to restate at the start of the elections, the Presidential candidate of our great party the PDP-Atiku Abubakar was the most prepared candidate to have faced the elections in all its ramifications. Atiku Abubakar has consulted widely, canvassed for votes based on the Atiku Plan, which Nigeria deserved at this point in time.
Atiku Abubakar has a well structured plan at all levels of the elections, all within the ambit of the law. The party, the Presidential Organizations, the logistics, the support groups and all party agents were well informed of their roles before, during, and after the elections. The most modern technology was also deployed, unknown to most people, to capture in real time, and transmit ( without relying on the Internet) all that transpired from accreditation to voting, counting of votes and documentation on the result sheets, signed by all other agents of contending parties The situation room of PDP directly received votes of all parties as counted and signed by all party agents at each polling unit all over the Country.
Other important events which may affect the integrity of the process was also recorded. The use of the Card Reader was particularly important and of interest to the PDP. In some instances, the act of rigging in favor of APC was caught on camera. Atiku Abubakar and the PDP actually prepared for the worst case scenario! Seeing how desperate the APC and Mohammadu Buhari were, especially after it orchestrated to postponement of the elections by one week to chiefly deploy its rigging strategy, the PDP had to take all reasonable precautions to safeguard the vote of Nigerians. While the collation of the results was going on in Abuja, the APC were busy changing the numbers at the polling units, ward collation Centers and the State collation Centers. The PDP immediately noticed that most results reaching Abuja have been altered along the way to Abuja. In fact the PDP situation room has all the results indicating that Atiku Abubakar has won the Presidential elections by over two million votes.
The Situation room staff of the PDP actually compared the parallel result sheets with those being declared by the INEC. In some case they compare correctly, and in some others the PDP or the APC votes were made plus or minus. The collation continued until the situation room could agree no more and that was the point at which the PDP requested for the suspension of the collation exercise..The PDP made a written request and complain to the National Returning Officer, who decided to ignore such request and continued with the collation exercise. Even after the collation exercise was completed, and the PDP requested it should be heard before the result was announced, was deliberately turned down. The National Returning Officer went ahead and declared the candidate of the APC, Muhammadu Buhari, as having won the the election by a margin of over four million votes. The rest is now history.
Gentlemen of the Press, you were aware of the effort at making peace by the peace committee led by Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar. When the committee visited with Atiku Abubakar, no demand was made on Mohammadu Buhari. But Atiku Abubakar did relate to them the enormity of the rigging that took place during the election. The results from Kano , Zamfara, Yobe, Bornu and Katsina States were at best laughable. The suppression of votes and voters in the South East and South South Nigeria was militarized to unprecedented level. Reports from National and international observers actually corroborated the PDP situation report. The demand of Atiku Abubakar is for justice and fair play. The mandate freely given to him by Nigerians, was not what INEC announced to Nigerians. Over 14,000,000 Nigerians voted for Atiku Abubakar, who is expected to claim the mandate on behalf of Nigerians who believed in him, and his capacity to make Nigeria work again. Lately, the official harassment has been extended to the immediate family of Atiku Abubakar. His Finance Officer and his son-law are currently in the custody of the security agencies. Their residences and offices were thoroughly searched for whatever reason, yet unknown. This Monday evening the Deputy Director General of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organization Barr. Saminu Turaki SAN was also picked up by the same faceless security agencies.
All these actions were meant to intimidate Atiku Abubakar to agree to their desperate attempt at peace-making on their terms. For the avoidance of doubt, no amount of intimidation will weaken our resolve. Atiku Abubakar has gone through much more intimidation and even attempt at his own life. I wish to call on the President to call the security agencies to order. This will not work at all. Truth shall let the President and the APC free. Why can’t they let a citizen of Nigeria exercise his fundamental right to seek justice? What are they afraid of, if they have integrity? Based on the details I related above, I Dr. Sani Adamu Bello, the Chairman of Deservation.org, on behalf of the over 14,000,000 Nigerians who voted and defended the votes for Atiku Abubakar, resolutely and completely frown and reject any attempt by Atiku Abubakar to accede to any form of peace making with the APC or its candidate Muhammadu Buhari. This National undertaking is now beyond the person of Atiku Abubakar, it is a task to be undertaken on behalf of over 180 million Nigerians who relied on the 14 million voters who elected him. Atiku Abubakar has been known to support the cause of democracy, even where he is not directly involved. He is known to have stood his ground on behalf of Nigerians whenever attempt is made at denying them their God given right to decide, democratically, issues affecting them.
I wish to remind Atiku Abubakar that all the political struggles he had taken to Courts to seek Justice in the past, were all decided on the side of the people. Atiku Abubakar is not know to go to Court on trivialities. He never went to Court, until the case merited it, and he won all of them. This is the greatest battle of his political life, the lives of 14 million Nigerians, who solemnly acted on behalf of over 180 million people.
Atiku Abubakar and the PDP must follow this case to its logical conclusion for several reasons;
• The institutions of democracy and the electoral system will be strengthened irrespective of the outcome of this undertaking.
• Election rigging by incumbent Government who have the instruments of terror at their beck and call shall be called to account. This will serve as a deterrent to other overzealous security agents. • When the recordings made at the points of polling and counting are revealed, the perpetrators will be caught in the act and dealt with according to the electoral law.
• The Judiciary and the Judicial system will be put to test. Justice shall be done and must be seen to have been done, irrespective of the offender and the offenses committed.
• The votes that were removed or added to the wrong candidate will be justifiably be given to the right candidate. In this process, several things are likely to change.
• Nigeria will be better for it, having followed the rule of law in a peaceful process.
• Once the judicial processes are strictly adhered to, the mandate of Nigerians, freely given to Atiku Abubakar will be reclaimed and the nation building and reconciliation will begin.
• The APC and Mohammadu Buhari will also write their names in gold, if they willingly allow the process to take its normal course and surrender power to Atiku Abubakar, according to the tribunal pronouncement or Justice.
For the avoidance of any doubt, We, the People, will enforce our will on Atiku Abubakar to pursue this noble cause to its logical conclusion up to the highest Court in the land-Supreme Court of Nigeria.
We wish to reiterated that surrendering this mandate in the name of peace is not an option. If you want peace, prepare for war. If good men do nothing in the face of injustice, that is an invitation to commit more of injustice. We need to test the integrity of the President Mohammadu Buhari to the limit, so that Nigerians will clearly see his true color, and not this integrity and fighting corruption mantra we are made to believe.
We already know that he is not a democrat, because he has maintained those vocabularies alluded to the Hitlers, Mussolini , and Pinochet of yesteryears. Finally, I wish to thank the youths and women, who worked tirelessly to win this election. I tell them not to give up, we shall reclaim our mandate and Atiku Abubakar will be sworn-in as the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I assure you that Atiku Abubakar will not, under any circumstances, surrender your mandate to forces of poverty and under-development. We are in this together, and we shall overcome, InshaAllah.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Sani Adamu Bello,
Founder: Deservation.org & Project774ForAtiku2019
Chairman Projects Management, APCO
