The 18 political parties that ran presidential and National Assembly candidates on February 25 were praised by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, for upholding the principles of the signed National Peace Agreement.
On Friday morning, Kukah gave the compliment in an interview with Arise Television News. According to him, the candidates’ conduct was admirable and should be commended for bringing respect to Nigerian politics and the electoral process.
As the convener of the National Peace Committee, I diligently monitored the implementation of the values stated during the signing of the Peace Accord.
“Let me commend the key political actors because, despite where we find ourselves now, on balance, Nigerians must agree that the presidential candidates did conduct themselves in a manner and in a way that brought a lot of respect to politics and the political processes. They deserve our commendation because we didn’t experience the usual recriminations and so on and so forth”, he said.
Meanwhile, candidates of both the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party, Peter Obi, in separate press conferences yesterday, refused to concede defeat, stating that they would head to the courts to challenge the results of the Presidential election, where the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, emerged winner, and has been presented a certificate of return as President-elect.
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Both candidates also declined the extension of an olive branch by Tinubu, who had in his acceptance speech on Wednesday, urged both parties and candidates to join him in building the country.
In his address yesterday, PDP’s Atiku said INEC had “failed woefully” in conducting free, fair and credible elections, and has thus ruined the dream of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to leave that behind as his legacy.
He further described the election as a “rape of democracy,” adding that his fight was not for himself but for the future of Nigeria.
Similarly, LP’s Peter Obi, stated emphatically that he won the election and was ready to prove it in court. He added that the announced results from the election had been “programmed” and were a deviation from the electoral rules set forth by INEC, adding that Nigerians had been robbed by its supposed leaders.
However, in response to the claims of the LP Presidential candidate, Director of Media and Publicity for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement titled “We will meet Peter Obi in Court,” said the president-elect was ready to engage Obi in court, provided there was concrete evidence proving he won the election.
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