Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has described the February 23 presidential election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the worst he has seen in 30 years.
The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had in the early hours of Wednesday declared the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari, as winner having polled a total of 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku , who scored 11,262,978 votes.
But, while addressing a press conference Wednesday in Abuja, Atiku noted that democracy is the government of the people and by the people only when the people’s choice prevails, saying that did not happen last Saturday.
The former vice president stressed that the election day witnessed the implementation of grand theft of the people’s will, adding that, “I am not known for hyperbole so I will just let the facts speak for themselves.”
Atiku explained that in Akwa Ibom for instance, the result showed a statistical impossibility of a 62 per cent drop in voter numbers from the 2015 elections even where voter registration and PVC collection rate were much higher in 2015.
According to him, “This is why voter suppression took place. You must recall, our party made this observation and complaint before the elections that there were plans to implement voter suppression on PDP or opposition’s strongholds and voter increase in APC strongholds.”
Atiku lamented that this pattern was repeated in strongholds of PDP including in states like Delta, Rivers, Abia and Benue States.
He stated, “As this was occurring, we saw another statistical impossibility where the real numbers tallied in numbers increased astronomically in Borno State by an almost miraculous 82 per cent in the midst of insecurity.
“This pattern was also repeated in other strongholds of the APC states. One begins to ask if insecurity is conduit to higher voter turnout and security is antithetical to high voter turnout? It is further curious that the PDP’s margin of victory in states outside the South East and South South were extremely slim across board. That again is a statistical impossibility.
“The fact is that when you calmly look at the numbers declared by INEC as results of February 23, 2019 elections, they do not add up at all. Let me say that I am not speaking as a member of PDP, I am speaking as a Nigerian when I said the electoral fraud perpetuated by the Buhari administration this past Saturday can not produce a government of the people for the simple reason that it does not reflect the will of the Nigerian people.
