PDP rejects Tinubu’s election victory, insists on Atiku

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday rejected the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) declaration of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as Nigeria’s president-elect.

INEC in the early hours of Wednesday declared Tinubu as the winner of last Saturday’s election after polling 8,794,726 votes to defeat the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, and 15 other candidates in the exercise.

In a statement issued in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party insisted that Abubakar won the election.

It asked INEC to immediately withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to Tinubu and cancel the presidential election in line with powers conferred on the commission under Section 65 of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The PDP added that the commission violated the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the Electoral Act 2022, and its guidelines on the conduct of the presidential election by declaring the former Lagos State governor as the winner of the election.

The statement read: “The PDP holds that its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, clearly won the February 25, 2023, presidential election having evidently scored the majority of lawful votes cast by Nigerians at the polling units.

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“Sadly, the election was marred by deliberate malpractices including the non-use of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System and INEC’s refusal/failure to transmit directly the results from Polling Units to its Server/Website in flagrant violation of Section 60 (4)(b) of the Electoral Act 2022.

“This violation of the Electoral Act by INEC as attested to by political parties, voters, Nigerians of all walks of life as well as local and International Observers, paved the way for the alteration, falsification, switching of results and allocation of figures in favour of the APC.

“By refusing therefore to transmit directly the results from the Polling Units, INEC violated the Electoral Act and its Rules and Regulation compromised the process, and marred the integrity and credibility of the election results.

“The PDP, therefore, asserts that consequent upon the violation by INEC of Section 60 (4) of the Electoral Act, 2022 and its Rules and Guidelines on the election, the results announced by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, having not been earlier transmitted directly from the Polling Units before the announcement are ultra vires, of no consequence and cannot stand.

“Consequently, our party and its presidential candidate have commenced an action for legal redress to reclaim our victory in the 2023 presidential election.”

Obi had earlier on Thursday claimed that he won the election and vowed to reclaim his stolen mandate in court.

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