Speaking to journalists on the outcome of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC)’s judgment, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, a foundation member of APC said as a Buharist, he had experienced the pain of losing post-presidential election judgment, so he understands the grief of members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), APM, and Labour Party (LP).
He said they have his empathy; however they should not blame the PEPC, but His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar whose greed denied them victory.
“First and foremost, let me congratulate President Tinubu, and our democracy for crossing this Rubicon. As a Buharist, one had the painful experience of losing presidential election judgments, so the members of PDP, LP, and APM have my empathy. To be honest, the day in 2022, when His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar trampled on the presidential zoning convention that governed the 4th Republic of Nigeria and which is embedded in his party’s Constitution; one concluded that he had wittingly or unwittingly fatally damaged the fabric of the PDP. Hence a divided house cannot stand, therefore Atiku by his greed denied PDP’s victory.”
Reminded that the petitioners had maintained that President Tinubu was not qualified to run, that there were irregularities in the conduct of the elections, and that the failure to electronically transmit results in real-time was fatal.
In reply, Okechukwu answered that those intricate webs could have been resolved if Atiku had obeyed the zoning convention, by simply making the contest a southern bout. It means the majority of the votes he garnered could have been PDPs.
“Atiku divided PDP’s votes irreparably, all the votes the Labour Party garnered were from the party’s stronghold. He naively forgot that northern voters are one of the most sophisticated in the country. He thought they were in dormitory waiting for orders.”
On the way forward, Okechukwu opined that a new Electoral Act will resolve all the ambiguities, by enthroning only electronic accreditation and transmission of results.
“I subscribe to the idea that we should abolish manual collation of results.
We also need to return to the popular Justice Uwais Handbook on Electoral Reform, which among other fine democratic tenets recommended how best to transparently recruit INEC Chairman, Commissioners, and sundry. With these, Election Petitions will be concluded before the swearing-in of winners. Let’s not forget that our democracy has witnessed tremendous advancement and that democracy is not a revolution, it’s a work in progress.” Okechukwu submitted.
