What Saraki said in first speech since he lost Senate seat, Kwara

Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki has said that the APC victory at the just concluded polls will be short-lived.

The Senate president stated this on Wednesday at an emergency National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja.

Mr Saraki explained that contrary to the views of many Nigerians, the outcome of the Feb 23 presidential election was a loss to the entire country and not just the PDP.

INEC had declared President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC winner of the election, having  scored 15,191,847 votes to best Atiku Abubakar of the PDP who polled 11,262,978 votes to finish as runner-up.

But in his response to the declaration, the PDP candidate said the result was unacceptable to him and he would challenge it in court.

In his remarks, Mr Saraki further noted that the conduct of the election, including the role of the military during the exercise, has made the country a laughing stock in the international community, adding that the purported winners of the election are ashamed of the process.

“This victory that the other party has seen is going to be short lived. If anybody believes that it is a loss to PDP, it is a loss to the country that history will not forgive.”

“We said it many times here, that the worst to do is to do an election that as a country Nigeria will not be proud of.

“We have done an election that no doubt anybody and even those that think they have won are ashamed of the kind of election that we did.

“I think it is a shame to the country and to those that were given that responsibility to do. They have Saturday as their last opportunity to try as much as possible to reclaim part of their embarrassment to the country.

“How can a country like Nigeria, as the speaker said, Ghana has done it, even Congo, even Zimbabwe have done elections. And we say we do elections, with seven inconclusive. We did elections before, in 2015, we did it in 2011, 1999 and after so many years, this is what we can produce.

“It is not a loss to the PDP, it is to the country. It just shows the level of desperation. I have confidence that this will be shortlived and as such let us ensure on Saturday, that these five states that are ours remain within the PDP and INEC should for once do what is right.

“We have a great future ahead and I believe we will start that on Saturday to make sure that we defend those five states that are declared inconclusive,” Mr Saraki said.