Obasanjo’s rejection of election results a call for coup – APC

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has berated former President Olusegun Obasanjo for advising President Muhammadu Buhari to cancel the results of elections allegedly marred by irregularities.

Obasanjo in a letter titled: “2023 Nigeria Presidential Election: An Appeal For Caution and Rectification,” urged the president to avert looming danger by ordering the cancellation of results in all elections that had failed the integrity tests.

He also asked the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to save Nigeria from a disaster waiting to happen.

The ex-president alleged that the election has been compromised following the INEC’s refusal to upload the election results on its platform.

Obasanjo made the call a few hours after the spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Dino Melaye, and other members of the party stormed out from the INEC collation center in Abuja.

Melaye had insisted that the results of the presidential election in Ekiti State as reported by the commission did not tally with what officials from polling units in the state declared before leaving the center with certain council members.

However, in a statement issued by the spokesman of its Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Alake, on Monday night, the APC accused Obasanjo of hypocrisy and mischief, noting that his call amounts to a coup and truncation of the ongoing democratic process.

READ ALSO: Obasanjo demands cancellation of election results in ‘problematic areas’

The statement read: “Our attention has been drawn to a press statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in which he was virtually calling for a truncation of the ongoing electoral process and a cancellation of already conducted elections on the basis of frivolous, unfounded, and baseless allegations by politicians who are sore losers and have no respect for democratic values.

“Obasanjo repeated without the slightest iota of evidence rumours he had picked up that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System had been compromised and that the results of elections being announced are fraudulent.

“It is tragic that a former President who ought to be a statesman in comportment and speech will recklessly seek to endanger and derail our democratic process for utterly selfish, egoistic, and malicious reasons. He offers not a single credible piece of evidence to prove his laughable and ridiculous allegations against INEC and the credibility of the ongoing process.

“Of course, we are all aware that Obasanjo is not an impartial and disinterested party as far as this election is concerned. On January 1, 2023, he had issued a characteristically lengthy epistle to Nigerians endorsing the candidacy of Mr. Peter Obi and asking Nigerian youths to vote en masse for him.

“Of course, our reaction was that the former President was entitled to his view and that the outcome of the elections would demonstrate if he had any electoral value. As fate would have it, Peter Obi was defeated even in Obasanjo’s own polling unit in Abeokuta in Ogun State. But it is now obvious that the only election Obasanjo will agree to be free, fair, and credible is one that produces Obi as winner which is ridiculous.

“Is Obasanjo also querying the outcome of the presidential elections in Lagos or Delta where Obi won? If the outcome in Lagos won by Obi is free and credible, on what basis is he querying the outcome of the elections in other places?

“This is pure mischief and sheer hypocrisy. Obasanjo wants President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in an undemocratic manner to truncate the ongoing political process just the way he did most shamelessness in the 2003 and 2007 elections widely described as the worst in our political history.

“Luckily, President Buhari is made of finer and more principled democratic stuff. He will not allow Obasanjo to lure him into tainting his democratic credentials in this regard.”

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now