The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) United State (US) has said it would remain on the side of aggrieved candidates on the just concluded presidential election to get justice, asserting that the process that led to the Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) becoming president-elect was heavily flawed.
NADECO has also flayed a spokesperson of the president-elect, Mr. Dele Alake, for claiming that NADECO was disparaging and casting aspersions on the credibility of the 2023 presidential election, which according to him, was freely and fairly won by his principal.
Quoting what a Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said: “Change is the only constant in life”, NADECO said it would only advise Alake to join it and stand for the truth and the Rule of Law, and “to embrace our clamour for freedom and justice for the Republic of Nigeria.
It also tasked the Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) to show proof that results it declared for the February 25 presidential election are in conformity with the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and International Human Rights Article 25 norms of free, fair, transparent, and safe elections.
The group in a statement by its General Counsel, W. Bruce DelValle, also explained that Lloyd Ukwu is a full-fledged member who has made tremendous contributions to democracy in Nigeria.
“NADECO is pushing the truth forward and the truth shall set the people of Nigeria free. NADECO prevailed once before and enthroned true democracy in Nigeria. History is bound to repeat itself…NADECO is going to continue what it did on June 12, 1993, and that is to stand for free, fair, and credible elections in Nigeria. For the record, NADECO US is not a splinter group, nor its executive director, Mr. Lloyd Ukwu an impostor, as alleged by Mr. Dele Alake. Ukwu is the Executive Director of NADECO in Washington, D.C. US. This is a position he has held for years. This can be verified, both by Dele Alake’s principal, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the United States Government, and the District of Columbia’s government.
“NADECO’s message is loud and clear to Nigerians, at home and abroad, and to the international community that the just concluded presidential election on February 25, 2023, that produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president-elect, who happens to be one of our former member, was shamelessly flawed, and short of NADECO’s democratic ideologies, and international best practices and standard.”
“NADECO would have expected Alake to, at least, marshal his own version of the facts contrary to NADECO’s concise and clear factual narrative stated in its press conference.
“Instead, he didn’t even bother to stoop so low as to present alternative facts, he went lower. In the absence of any legitimate argument, Alake instead chose to tarnish the image of NADECO’s Executive Director, Lloyd Ukwu, and thus try to destroy the messenger because the message is unassailable.
“This tactic is an act of desperation indicative of nothing substantive to say. School boys use this argument when they have been intellectually disarmed because they have nothing else to say beyond stammering ad hominem attacks, sputtered in hopeless desperation” the pro-democracy group said.
Also former Head of NADECO, North America, Chief Raph Obioha in a statement, yesterday, knocked Alake for describing Ukwu as an impostor.
He said Ukwu was a major pillar in the NADECO struggle when the group had no money, donated a befitting office space and funded costly outreaches to many countries.
He said it was a gross injustice to the contributions of Ukwu to the struggle of NADECO to suggest that he or the group by their recent complaints about the conduct of the just conducted presidential election, were working for Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi.
“We are working for the enthronement of true democracy in Nigeria based on the popular will of Nigerians as expressed through free and fair elections,” Obiorah said.
