By Abimbola Ogunnaike
The spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council(APCPCC), Festus Keyamo, has drummed it to the ears that cared to listen that the the 2023 elections are credible.
Keyamo, who alongside the Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare, and others, addressed the press at Washington DC, United States, on Wednesday, said the fact that the APC leaders including the sitting President, the President-elect and governors, lost their home states to the opposition, was enough justification for the credibility of the 2023 elections.
“For the first time, 20 sitting governors lost their states, mostly those of the ruling party. Seven governors who sought elections into the Senate failed to scale through. This had never happened in the history of Nigeria. In addition, the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost his home state (Lagos State); the sitting President lost his home state (Katsina State),” Keyamo said according to a statement made available to the media houses.
The lawyer turned politician recalled that when Buhari signed into law the Electoral Act, he was hailed by the opposition parties and that “there was also complete non-interference in the political process by state institutions. There were no reports of deployment of security agents or state apparati in support of the candidate of the ruling party. In fact, in some instances, the opposition celebrated the fact that our candidates had no support of the government.
“The ruling party, the APC, controlled 21 out of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT before the elections with elected governors; whilst the main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party, had 14 governors and the All Progressives Grand Alliance had one governor. The Labour Party had no single governor nor elected official at any level of government.
“About eight months to the elections, the main opposition, the PDP, suffered some major set-backs. Its vice-presidential candidate in 2019, Mr. Peter Obi, moved to the Labour Party with his supporters, mainly from his region of origin, the South-East. Another of the party’s main pillar of support in the North-West, Alhaji Musa Kwakwanso, moved to the New Nigerian Peoples Party, taking with him a chunk of the party’s supporters in that region.
“Five out of the 14 governors of the PDP, publicly announced they would not be campaigning for or supporting its presidential candidate (Atiku Abubakar). Meanwhile, the ruling party remained one huge, indivisible entity with no departure of any of its elected officials or public dissent from them. It was in this state of affairs that all the parties went into the elections,” the Minister of State for Labour and Employment stated.
Recall that at the February 25 presidential election, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his major contenders in the PDP, LP and the NNPP, who polled 6,984,520, 6,101,533 and 1,496,687 respectively.
The PDP and the LP have since rejected the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, and kicked against the results over alleged irregularities such as voter intimidation, and non-uploading of results to the INEC viewing portal as immediate as possible, among others.
Source: Punch
