PDP’s Atiku to address national issues Monday
Comment
Nigeria’s former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar will address the press on national issues on Monday.
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This is according to a statement released Saturday by the PDP Publicity Office which disclosed that the presidential candidate wishes to speak on very serious and important national issues.
The planned press conference comes on the heels of the Supreme Court judgment, which dismissed the former vice president’s appeal for lacking in merit and affirmed President Bola Tinubu the winner of the February presidential election.
The statement reads, “The presidential candidate of our great party, the PDP, in the February 25, 2023, presidential election and former Vice President of the Federal Republic of NigeriaAtiku Abubakar, Wazirin Adamawa, will address a crucial press conference on issues of serious importance to the nation.
“Date is Monday, October 30, 2023 at PDP National Secretariat, Wadata Plaza, Abuja. The time is time is 11am prompt.”
Recall that the Supreme Court on Thursday, upheld President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election win, bringing to an end a legal challenge brought by his two main rivals, Alhaji Atiku Waziri Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party and Mr Peter obi of the Labour Party, LP, who argued that his victory was marred by irregularities.
The supreme court reportedly struck out the appeals of both the PDP and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar as well as that of the LP’s Presidential candidate, Peter Obi for lack of merit on both appeals thereby, availing 71-year-old Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, a clear mandate to govern Africa’s most populous nation, which is grappling with double-digit inflation, foreign currency shortages, a weakening naira, widespread insecurity and crude oil theft.
Delivering judgement, the jury, a seven-man panel, ruled as without merit the opposition appeals over claims of fraud, electoral law violations, and Tinubu’s ineligibility to run for president, a development to which the PDP candidate who came second place in the February 25 elections said he was “alarmed and disappointed” by.
“On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the appellant, it is my view that there is no merit in the appeal and it is hereby dismissed,” A member of the seven-man panel, Justice Okoro said in dismissing Atiku’s appeal.
“The judgment of the court below delivered on September 6th, 2023 affirming the election of the second respondent as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is hereby affirmed,” he ruled.
President Tinubu having been vindicated however, welcomed the judgment. In a statement, the president said, “We are all members of one household, and this moment demands that we continue to work and build our country together.”
On their part, Peter Obi’s Labour Party, through its National Chairman Julius Abure, condemned the Supreme Court’s verdict upholding the election of Bola Tinubu as president, calling it a “shredding of the sacred fabric of justice and good conscience.”
Abure had reportedly said that the apex court’s decision was a clear sign that Nigeria is “sliding towards dictatorship,” with the executive branch hijacking both the judiciary and the legislature.
He also warned that the government may be planning to persecute and harass Labour Party leaders, including himself and Presidential candidate Peter Obi, in order to suppress the party and its goal of a new Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Reuters in a report had noted that “Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost uninterrupted military rule, but accusations of ballot-rigging and fraud have followed its electoral cycles.”
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