On Tinubu, Obi and Atiku – Matters Arising | By Adeniyi Olowofela

 

The amount of support and votes received by Peter Obi within eight months in the Labour Party (LP) were amazing and he should be declared Man of the year for this election.

While Atiku Abubakar has the highest frequency of contesting Presidential elections in Nigeria.

However, the claims by some of their supporters that the election was rigged against them, are mere appeals to emotions not backed with facts and figures.

The National election was done on Saturday 25th February 2023 and all the party agents of the leading parties APC, PDP and Labour already had the results from their party agents. Which they ought to have used, to calculate their results.

Any party who has not calculated the results by Sunday night is not worthy of ruling the country.

Mr Peter Obi is an “Expert” in statistics, he would have calculated the results of his election ward by ward, local government by local government and state by state. Ditto Veteran Atiku.

If the results released by INEC are different from what the Labour party and PDP calculated from their party agents, based on Polling Units by Polling Units, Wards by Wards, local government by local government and state by state. Finally the figure at the Federal level. They ought to contest the results by releasing them and showing how INEC has compromised the final results.

The fact that this has not been done implies that the results released by INEC (APC – 8,794,726, PDP – 6,984,520 and Labour 6,101,533) are the same as the one calculated by their “Statisticians”

I heard some people saying INEC did not upload the result into its server on time, but would that be an excuse not to collate the result by the parties?

Labour party won Lagos State, where, most people thought Tinubu ought to win, with a landslide victory, yet heaven did not fall when he lost. INEC must have been credible by then.

Tinubu lost Lagos to the Labour party, President Muhammad Buhari lost Katsina to PDP, El-Rufai lost Kaduna to PDP and Lalong lost Plateau State to the Labour party yet some ragamuffins are saying that the elections were rigged, it would have been foolishness on the part of BAT if he could rig and not to rig in Lagos State. Ditto PMB in Katsina State, El-Rufai in Kaduna State and Lalong in Plateau State.

INEC was transparent in the conduct of the election and collations of the results and should be commended.

In any race, there will be winners and losers. Tinubu won the closely contested election. Peter Obi and Atiku should congratulate BAT. If on the other hand, they feel, honestly, that the figures declared by INEC are erroneous and at variance to the calculated results emanating from the polling Units then they have constitutional rights to challenge INEC results at an election Tribunal.

Nonetheless, Bola Ahmed Tinubu remains President-elect.

I pray God will grant him wisdom to lead us right.

Professor Adeniyi Olowofela, a former LG Chief, Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, is the commissioner representing Oyo state at the Federal Character Commission (FCC)