By Christiana Ekpa
The Labour Party has said that the All Progressive Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate will remain restless because they have murdered peace in the country by conniving with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to rub citizens of their mandate.
In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by the Director of Media Team, Obi-Datti presidential campaign organisation, Diran Onifade, LP said that since Tinubu and APC were fraudulently declared winner of the election, they have become restless.
“Since this unsettling declaration as winner of a charade, as supervised by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and his men, and which has rightly been condemned by millions of Nigerians and also by international observers, the APC and its candidate, Bola Tinubu, have remained restless, because they have murdered peace.
“So, not surprisingly, Yesterday, March 2, 2023, soon after our presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi reaffirmed that he indeed won the election, and declared his intention to proceed to court to retrieve his mandate, the APC camp panicked again, with Onanuga’s incongruous press statement .
“What may be gleaned by Mr Onanuga’s empty and futile attempt to throw truth on its head, is that Mr Obi was declared 3rd, so he has no standing to contest the results, that many prominent parties and personalities lost their states and contested seats, so therefore the elections were free and fair,and that Mr Peter Obi and the Labour Party swept the elections in the southeast, so it was an indication of fairness.
“It is important to underline, for the benefit of Mr Onanuga and anyone else, who may be caught in similar shallow and deceitful analysis, that our objection to the criminal operation on 25th February is fundamental and total, based not on diversionary sentiment, but on thousands of well documented evidence, which do not need much searching or advanced intelligence, to obtain or comprehend.
“What we seek, simply, is that the true results, as recorded by Nigerian voters, in the polling booths, be processed, as required by law, by instantly transmitting them to the INEC server and thereafter being reflected on the IREV before declaration, as they form the primary record of the election, for all tabulation, collation and declaration.
“The idea of criminally withholding passwords, inflation , alteration , substitution, manipulation and fabrication of voting figures and Form EC8A, outside this simple process, remains an illegality, even where they have been criminally crafted for the Labour Party to maintain its deserved lead, at any sub unit of the election.
“It is clear that we have little grounds in common with Onanuga or the APC, to begin to discuss or compare notes on this election; as far as he is concerned, the fact that Labour Party won in some declared results, should forestall a challenge to an election that was overwhelmed by irregularities, from top to bottom. This has no basis in reason.
“Let us also address this opportunity, the scope of this illegality. We totally reject the narrative that the Obi/Datti ticket did not win the required spread of 25% in enough states, or that we did not win enough votes in the Northern States.
“The evidence is consistent that the same brazen alteration of votes, and non transmission of polling booth results, occurred all across the country, including the Northern States.
“There is abundant evidence that the votes were systematically altered and reduced in these states, with the particular aim of denying our ticket it’s duly earned 25% and higher, in those states.
“Ordinarily, it is not in our nature to respond to every diatribe, especially of misguided deceit.
“However, where the line between truth and falsehood, as well as between fact and fiction, have become so thin, it is incumbent on us, to set the records straight, lest the APC known for their penchant for half-truths , deflect attention from their misadventure of February 25, which has cast a pall over the entire nation.
“For a party, which has spent the last eight years in power, destroying every fabric of national unity, pauperizing Nigerians and pillaging the national treasury through greedy and unconscionable officials, to try to paint our Presidential Candidate with the same paint of ethnic and religious divisionism, which is their trademark, is not only despicable, but unconscionable, the statement said.
