Tinubu dares Atiku, we’ll meet in court

The winner of the 2023 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC),  has dared the defeated candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, to go ahead with his threat to challenge the result of the Saturday presidential election won by the APC candidate. Tinubu and the APC declared that they will meet Atiku’s challenge anywhere and anytime.

The Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson, Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, SAN, Minister of State, Labour and Employment, in a statement in Abuja declared: “Atiku Abubakar’s decision to challenge the outcome or the results is welcome. We are prepared to meet his challenge, no matter the nature of the challenge, anywhere and anytime.”

Keyamo urged Atiku to accept the reconciliation initiative of the new President, Tinubu. According to him, “if ATIKU Abubakar is not embracing the olive branch extended to him and other losers in the 2023 elections by the President-elect, ASIWAJU Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the least he can do is to quietly relocate to Dubai which has become his traditional home base.”

The full statement reads:

IMMEDIATE RESPONSE BY THE TINUBU/ SHETTIMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN COUNCIL TO THE PRESS CONFERENCE BY ALHAJI ATIKU ABUBAKAR:

Atiku Abubakar should quit being delusional: he destroyed his party and reaped the full consequence of his indiscretion

In the typical fashion of the last kick of a dying horse, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar this evening addressed the Press and claimed that the 2023 Presidential Election was neither free nor fair. He made this bogus claim without providing a shred of evidence, except to trumpet the noise made by his supporters on social media. He also went ahead to make unfounded derogatory comments about the person of the President-elect, ASIWAJU Bola Ahmed Tinubu in obvious bitterness and frustration.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should be thankful that he even exceeded expectations in the elections by coming 2nd; with all the distractions and fractured party with which he campaigned he must have sensed beforehand that he was headed for a humiliating defeat that should have put him a distant 3rd or 4th in the elections. His performance was therefore the best he could achieve.

Firstly, Atiku Abubakar breached the zoning principle within his own party by insisting on running for President when that was clearly against the mood of the nation; even after emerging as a candidate, the PDP itself continued to rub insult on the faces of southern leaders in the Party by insisting on keeping the position of National Chairman in the North. This obviously led to the rebellion of the G5 Governors and their subsequent sabotage of the PDP before the polls and at the polls by campaigning against ATIKU’S candidature. His failure to unite his party and manage this post-primaries fall-out was his eventual undoing.

ATIKU’S bid for the Presidency this time around was dead on arrival when his inordinate ambition fractured his party into 3 parts, with Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwanso and Mr. Peter Obi breaking away to the NNPP and the Labour Party respectively. The massive loss he suffered in traditional PDP zones and States is a clear testament to this. One wonders, then, how he expected to have won the election. It is also comical to see that he claims victory at the polls together with Mr. Peter Obi with whom his party has been holding Press Conferences.

Nigerians have since seen through the ambition of ATIKU Abubakar that it is merely self-serving. Hence, he has run for Presidency at every point in time in the last 30 years, irrespective of the zoning tilt of the nation. Following his successive failures and rejection by Nigerians in different elections, it should be clear to him by now that he is simply UNELECTABLE. The expositions relating his self-confessed mode of syphoning public funds whilst in office through SPVs further dented his aspiration before Nigerians.

Atiku Abubakar’s decision to challenge the outcome of the results is welcome. We are prepared to meet his challenge, no matter the nature of the challenge, anywhere and anytime.

If ATIKU Abubakar is not embracing the olive branch extended to him and other losers in the 2023 elections by the President-elect, ASIWAJU Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the least he can do is to quietly relocate to Dubai which has become his traditional home base.

Thank you.

FESTUS KEYAMO, SAN,

• Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson, Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council.
• Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Federal Republic of Nigeria. SAN,