Atiku, a ‘political rolling stone,’ Oshiomhole on why Nigerians voted against PDP

National chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, on Thursday took the defeated presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last Saturday election, Atiku Abubakar, to the cleaners.

He described him as a “political rolling stone” saying that the election which was majorly between him and President Muhammadu Buhari, was a referendum between a man of integrity and a man without integrity.

Oshiomhole, who stated this during APC’s world press conference at the party secretariat in Abuja, added that Nigerians “loudly voted in favour of integrity.”

Atiku had at a press conference a day earlier, officially rejected the result of last Saturday’s presidential election, which saw the candidate of the ruling APC, incumbent President Buhari, re-elected President for the next four years.

Atiku’s position came on the heels of diverse reactions by Nigerians over the conduct of the Saturday election which witnessed killings of several Nigerians, ballot box snatching and other electoral irregularities.

However, commenting on what happened during the election, Oshiomhole called on Buhari to order security agents to fish out everyone involved, or those who sponsored killings of innocent Nigerians who came out for the exercise.

Read also: Buhari’s victory is triumph of ordinary Nigerians over elite –Lai Mohammed

He wondered how Atiku who signed a peace accord going into the election and knowing that only one person will emerge winner of the election, would supposedly prefer to stand truth on its head by adducing reasons while he thinks the elections were rigged.

Going down memory lane as to the records of votes scored by the PDP in previous election, he said the APC scored less in the 2019 election than it did in 2015, describing Atiku as a poor student of statistical data.

He also took time to give other reasons Nigeria decided to stick with President Buhari instead of choosing Atiku as their next leader.

He said, “I believe that what happened last Saturday was a referendum between a man of integrity and a man of doubtful integrity and Nigerians have resolved the issue satisfactorily and we believe Nigerians have spoken.

“However, yesterday, the PDP candidate who lost, and who was a signatory to the peace accord, went into this race knowing that Nigeria cannot possibly elect two presidents. Only one president will emerge.

“Having suffered defeat, which I believe he deserved, he went on to say that he rejects the result and adducing very laughable argument as the basis for his decision. But I have found out that in this country, you recycle lie over and over, some people begin to think that there is truth in it. The conventional wisdom is that there is no smoke without fire. But in Nigerian politics, there is huge smoke and yet, there is not fire at all.

“Now, I want to speak to some facts as we know them and I challenge you as members of the media to crosscheck from your own records, as a way of enabling yourselves to debunk effortlessly the falsehood that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar tried to parrot yesterday in order to discredit what otherwise represents the very peaceful election, in spite of those isolated incidents and I am happy that the international community, as well as the Nigerian observers, are unanimous that this election and no election anywhere in the world is perfect. We have people in some parts of the western world who are leaders of democracy, who are still conducting enquiry into how their own last election was conducted. So, it’s not about whether this election was perfect. It is whether it is substantially free and fair and whether indeed, it represents the will of the Nigerian people.

“I am convinced as INEC has announced that this election reflects the will of the Nigerian people and that for us is something for which we beat our chest and we congratulate the great people of Nigeria. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar describes what he calls statistical impossibilities and he claimed that the two zones where he is strongest, that votes in those areas were smaller, and that the margin of victory was also small. He specifically referred to the South-South and the South-East. I want to refresh the minds of Nigerians and indeed, all those who are interested, by just rolling out the voting pattern since 1999.

“When Alhaji Atiku Abubakar talks about statistical impossibilities, I don’t want to call him a poor student of statistics. But talking about statistical impossibilities, I invite you to reflect on the number of new registered voters.”

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