The ruling party, the All Progressives Congress,(APC) and opposition parties led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) continued with verbal war for the domination of the airspace this weekend with the Federal Government on Sunday reacting to series of opposition parties reactions to President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent comment on the
The ruling party, the All Progressives Congress,(APC) and opposition parties led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) continued with verbal war for the domination of the airspace this weekend with the Federal Government on Sunday reacting to series of opposition parties reactions to President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent comment on the 2023 Presidential elections describing the parties as “shameless sore losers”.
While Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the President’s analysis on the reasons for the opposition’s loss in the 2023 elections is incontrovertible. But opposition political parties gave the President thumbs down ‘ for gloating over’ what they described as the 2023 electoral heist which is still being challenged at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party( PDP), Hon. Debo Ologunagba at a press conference on Friday said President Buhari’s claims that the opposition lost the 2023 general elections due to overconfidence and lack of strategy were not only unfortunate, reckless, and un-presidential but also sub-judice.
“The general despondency, resentment and anger across our country; the damning reports by election observers and the pervading international contempt against Nigeria since the declaration of the APC candidate as President-elect are ominous testaments that he does not have the mandate of majority of Nigerians derivable only from a credible electoral process.
“Nigerians and the International Community are therefore appalled, horrified and scandalized by the careless, unguarded and subjudice comment by President Buhari in which he attempted to justify the rigging of the February 25, 2023 Presidential election by the APC under his watch.”
Speaking further he said: “the President’s statement reveals the utter disregard that he has for our constitutional democracy, judiciary and the will of the Nigerian people as expressed at the February 25, 2023 Presidential election.It is, to say the least, reprehensible for Mr. President to posture and gloat over the trampling of the will of Nigerians, blame the opposition for being overconfident and, according to him, for not being “tactical”, perhaps enough to outwit the violence, brutality, threats, suppression of voters, rigging and election manipulations by the APC and the government which he heads.
“It is unpardonable that President Buhari, who swore to uphold the laws of our country and made several commitments to the world to ensure free, fair, credible and transparent election, is rather in approval of election rigging through manifest compromise of INEC system and wide-spread alteration, falsification and switching of election results in favour of his rejected party, the APC.
Speaking in similar vein, Spokesperson of the Labour Party(LP) Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, said the Buhari Presidency should bury its head in shame for trying to justify a brazen attempt to steal the people’s mandate. This administration which benefited from a free and fair election in 2015 has failed in all areas of governance. Is our refusal as a party to join the APC in ‘snatching, grabbing and running away with power using violence and intimidation the lack of strategy he is talking about?
“Nigerians are today more divided than any time in our history, farmers can no longer go to their farms because they are being attacked by bandits, the economy is in shambles-Nigeria under Buhari’s watch attained the inglorious position as the world’s poverty capital, yet what he is concerned about is how to defend the indefensible. It’s unfortunate,” he stressed.
But the federal government in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja by Mr Segun Adeyemi, the Special Assistant to the President (Media), in the Office of the Information and Culture Minister reiterated the position of the President that the opposition in the 2023 presidential election lost in the poll due to their overconfidence, complacency and bad tactical moves.
“Opposition’s overconfidence going into the election stemmed in part from the blitzkrieg of social media propaganda as well as faulty and procured opinion polls.
“These were apparently meant to hoodwink their foreign backers and a section of the international media into uncritically reporting that they were coasting home to victory, when they were indeed heading into the ravine of defeat,” he said
Alhaji Mohammed advised the opposition to stop their endless griping over the polls which they lost, adding that the president deserves accolades for delivering the best election in Nigeria’s history.
His words: “President Muhammadu Buhari lived up to his billing by delivering a free, fair and credible election, and his legacy is assured.
“The President would rather lose his state and many of his party’s strongholds than tamper with the fidelity of the election, and that is why he provided a level-playing field for all parties,” he said.
According to the Information and Culture Minister,the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, won the presidential election fair and square, clinching the majority of the votes cast.
He added that Tinubu surpassed the constitutionally-stipulated 25 per cent of votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
”Going by the results, none of the opposition parties met any of the conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election.
“They did not even come close, in spite of their pre-election grandstanding.
”They (opposition) keep leaning on some international observers to justify their fraudulent claim that the election was rigged,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed referred the opposition to the conclusion by Mr Johnnie Carson, the revered US diplomat, that the APC candidate “undoubtedly won the polls”.
Mr. Carson, according to the minister, co-led the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) International Election Observation Mission to Nigeria.
”They also forgot that the African Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria said the atmosphere was generally calm and peaceful in 95 per cent of the polling units visited.
“It is on the strength of these reports that many nations, including the US and the UK, wasted no time in congratulating the victorious APC Presidential Candidate,” he said.
The minister slammed the opposition for continuously seeking to mislead the world by clutching at the weak straw that results were not immediately uploaded onto the IReV Portal.
He stressed that the portal had no role to play in the collation of election results.
”The opposition’s insinuation that the failure to immediately upload the result of the presidential election onto IReV affected the credibility of the election is a fraud.
“It is an act of blackmail and deceit by desperate individuals.
”The opposition Labour Party, in particular, will go down in the history books as the first-ever distant third-place finisher in a presidential election anywhere to have bold-facedly claimed victory,” he said.
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