• Group wants ICC to prosecute army officers, others
By Ogheneuvde Ohwovoriole in Abuja
The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23, 2019 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, said yesterday that that no country can grow on rigged elections, stressing that the electoral process.
This is coming as a non-governmental organisation, We The People Of Nigeria, has urged the international community to place Nigeria on a watch list pending, the outcome of the legal challenge to President Muhammadu Buhari’s election.
Obi said in a statement in Abuja that election rigging “is the root of corruption, as it goes to impact negatively on the political and economic growth of the country.”
The former governor of Anambra State added that the electoral fraud that characterised the general election has hugely undermined the nation’s democracy and its future, stating that it had significantly damaged the ongoing fight against corruption and tainted the integrity of those behind the rigging.
He stated that it was difficult for Nigeria to quantify the enormity of damage the electoral fraud had done to the psyche of the country.
Meanwhile, a non-governmental organisation, We The People Of Nigeria, has urged the international community to place Nigeria on a watch list pending, the outcome of the legal challenge to President Buhari’s election.
The group also asked the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation on Buhari and the Chief of Army, General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, along with his agents for alleged crimes against humanity — perpetrated during the February and March 2019 election in Rivers State and elsewhere.
In a statement by the Founder/Director of the group, Dr. Lloyd F. Ukwu, the group equally strongly condemned what it described as the illegal, corrupt and fraudulent electoral practices that characterised the presidential elections, rejecting the declaration of Buhari, as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ukwu said that the outcome of the presidential election was not legitimate and true reflection of the will of the people of Nigeria, and condemned the violence, intimidation, oppression and threats inflicted upon the voters.
According to the statement, ‘’We The People of Nigeria rejects the declaration of the Independent National Election Commission as regards Buhari’s fraudulent victory and we ask that all nations join us in the condemnation of President Muhammadu Buhari, his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and others who have worked together to steal the elections from the people of Nigeria and circumvented their rightful ballot-box choices.
‘’We The People Of Nigeria has spearheaded initiatives to galvanise international support for a fair and legitimate process to determine the winner of the February 23, 2019, Nigerian presidential election. Overwhelming credible evidence demonstrates fraud, intimidation, violence, and manipulation tainted the results.’’
The group added that its members had visited Washington DC, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) in Brussels Belgium to draw the international community’s attention to the electoral fraud that characterised the last general elections.
“The team visited House and Senate members of the United States Congress, met with the United States State Department, and delivered a letter to President Donald Trump. The team then travelled to the United Nations in New York to submit a letter to Acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations, the Honourable Mr. Anthony Cohen.
“Our members also visited London to deliver letters to British Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Theresa May at No. 10 Downing Street, and, to Chatham House and the Office of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Lastly, the team delivered a letter to the Secretary General of the European Union Parliament.
