Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bayo Onanuga, has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) of extorting the judiciary over Bola Tinubu’s election as president.
According to a statement released by Onanuga on Monday (8 May 2023) morning, God has plans for Nigeria and “chose a man who has the best leadership pedigree and espouses the best vision” to run things starting on May 29.
The APC Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) former media director claimed that having witnessed elections since 1979, “2023 election was the best, most free and fair, most transparent”.
Onanuga stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and those criticizing the exercise are upset because the poll “did not match their expectation.”
A member of the Transition Committee blasted priests for criticizing the election, citing Cardinal John Onaiyekan of the Catholic Church’s most recent remark.
“To Onaiyekan, the alleged machination of ‘those riggers’ made impossible the manifestation of the ‘people’s will’ in the outcome announced by INEC.”
Onanuga said the “malicious propaganda” has been told repeatedly by the opposition parties and their supporters since March 1, when Tinubu was declared as President-elect.
The “lie”, according to him, has been sold outside the country to people who do not have first-hand information on how INEC conducted the poll.
Onanuga said the 2023 election was “miles ahead of the heavily compromised 2007 election conducted by President Olusegun Obasanjo wherein the beneficiary, Umaru Yar’Adua apologized”.
The Justice Uwais Commission, which Yar’Adua established to clean up the electoral process, atoned for Obasanjo’s transgression, according to the former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
According to him, the current election was the most technologically advanced vote ever held in Nigeria because to the implementation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
“Critics of INEC, on account of the non-transmission of the results recorded at the 176,000 polling units are purely doing so for mischief…each party polling agent was given a copy of Form EC8.”
Onanuga argued that parties do not need to wait for INEC to upload results in order to know the full results, citing the example of former President Goodluck Jonathan, who, after learning of his fate, conceded to President Muhammadu Buhari prior to INEC’s declaration.
“In a development that is extremely strange to our politics, the LP and the PDP initially sponsored calls for an interim government. We have never had such post-poll desperation, except this time that we have a Peter Obi and an Atiku.
“Since 1999, every election held has always been disputed by losers. The winners are allowed to be sworn in, while litigation goes on. This was the case in all elections…also the trend in the states,” he stressed.
Referring to this, Onanuga said that Datti Baba-Ahmed, Obi’s running mate, was defeated in court in 2011 when the latter was already serving as senator for Kaduna North.
According to the statement, some people think that the candidates who placed second and third are pursuing legal actions, thus the convention cannot be changed in Tinubu’s case.
