The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC) has faulted the candidates of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi, over the electronic transmission of the result, saying their claim is not supported by law.
The campaign council also frowned at the unguarded utterances of the two opposition leaders, asking them to pursue their grievances in court with decorum.
On Thursday at separate press conferences, Atiku and Obi rejected the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) declaration of APC standard bearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 Presidential election.
Putting a lie to all the claims by the two opposition candidates, the APC PCC on Friday at the council headquarters in Abuja, said the claim that the electoral agency did not use the BVAS is false, maintaining that those who voted across Nigeria, including Atiku and Obi, were accredited by BVAS.
Speaking on behalf of the council, Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Dele Alake, flanked by other media directors of the council, argued that the complaint over the electronic transmission of the result has no place in law.
According to him: “The complaint over the electronic transmission of the result is not supported by law.
“Section 38 of the Electoral Acct 2022 referred to by the PDP and LP has nothing to do with the transmission of election results. Section 60, subsection 2 of the Act deals with the transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.
“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in any way change the results that have been announced right after the counting in the presence of the parties’ agents and to the hearing of the voters. It is, therefore, nonsensical to insinuate that time variation in uploading results would cause a change in the figures.”
Describing the February 25 Presidential election as a watershed that has produced unprecedented outcomes and defied conventions, the campaign council noted that the deployment and use of BVAS was the only reason the elections produced these strange outcomes and upsets in many cases.
“The loss of Katsina and Lagos to PDP and LP respectively were contrary to expectations. BVAS brought the intended credibility to voters’ accreditation such that many governors and well-established politicians lost elections in what should be safe bet areas.
“The era of ghost-voting and stuffing of ballot boxes is gone. As the experience in the last governorship election in Osun State has shown, over-voting would automatically lead to outright cancellation of the results of the polling units based on the provision of the new Electoral Act.
“The same PDP that is trying to pull the wool across the face of Nigerians was the culprit in the Osun State governorship election. Did they try to do it this time and it failed? Or did they do it in the areas they unexpectedly won? Did they have a grand plan to hack the INEC server if results were uploaded in real-time? Nigerians will soon find out.”
Warning the two presidential candidates to be mindful of their utterances, the APC PCC told Atiku and Obi of its readiness to meet them in court.
“We want to enjoin the two of them to pursue their grievances with decorum. They should encourage their members, supporters, and ethnic and religious consultants to follow the path of the rule of law.
“We note that both Atiku and Obi are claiming victory, wouldn’t it make sense for them to agree on who the actual winner is before challenging APC in court? Meanwhile, the APC train has left the station as we continue our effort to make Nigeria better for all Nigerians,” Alake said.
