•Says party upbeat of victory
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, said it had credible information that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party were presently shopping for a court order to stop the announcement of the presidential result.
One of the spokesperson of the APC campaign, Festus Keyamo, who made the allegation at a press conference in Abuja, insisted that the two opposition parties were hell-bent on scuttling the country’s democratic process.
“We have credible information that PDP and Labour Party are presently shopping for a court order to stop the announcement of the result like the June 12, election. We have credible information from my colleagues at the bar, who is consulting for colleagues in the inner bar – the Senior Advocates like me, who have told them to go and prepare papers and proceed to court to secure an order to stop INEC from announcing the result of last Saturday’s election.
“My appeal to the judiciary is to remember the infamous Justice Ikpeme. We should not allow the replay of that situation of Justice Ikpeme and what happened to her thereafter. Please, please, please we (judiciary) should not scuttle this democracy,” he said.
Special Adviser, Media and Communication, Dele Alake, also expressed concern over inciting comments and calls to violence by some spokespersons of the opposition, especially those from the PDP.
He said Dino Melaye’s tweet threatening violence, and Dele Momodu going on the TV to announce a purported winner should not go scot-free.
The Campaign said having failed to procure officials to help it doctor results, the PDP rented willing airwaves to make very dangerous statements on the election.
Alake said: “We note with utmost concern those inciting comments and calls to violence by some spokespersons of the opposition, especially, those from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“We are particularly concerned and call on the State Security Services and the Nigeria Police Force to immediately restrain persons such as Dino Melaye, Dele Momodu and a certain Pastor Paul Enenche of Dunamis Church from their clear call to violence.
“The results trickling in since the close of voting on Saturday have clearly shown the direction Nigerians have chosen to go. Right from the polling unit results received from across the country, the signs were clear that the deceit and propaganda of the opposition did not fetch them the expected votes.
“This has expectedly generated anxiety in their camps with many of their leaders making irresponsible incendiary comments,” Alake noted, adding that when failure stared them in the face, rather than accept the outcome with dignity like good democrats would, “some sore losers began shopping for ways to cut corners or scuttle the process.
“We have seen many doctored results giving false victory to the Labour Party in places, where it performed abysmally poor. The idea was to give its followers hope and prepare them for a planned street insurrection. The PDP has employed almost similar tactics despite secretly admitting defeat. They went about with mouthwatering offers looking for willing partners that would help them subvert the will of the people.
“We also wonder why agents of the party at the Abuja collation centre are pushing insistently for the uploading of the results on INEC portal, when section 60 of the Electoral Act is clear about who has the power to do so at the polling unit. The state collation officer has no such power. The INEC chairman, who collates what has been collated from the states also has no such power.
“Is the PDP calling for the upload to enable it to hack the system to give it a false victory? Unlike what the PDP spokesmen have done, we will not announce ourselves as winners despite having the figures which affirm our anticipated victory. We will abide by the laws by allowing the electoral umpire to do its job.”
Alake noted that a cursory look at the figures from across the states showed that the presidential candidate of the party, Bola Tinubu, was well placed for victory, and stressed that the results had shown that the Labour Party was no threat to APC’s victory.
