6th October, 2023
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has told his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, that he actually won the 2023 election and he is in the Supreme Court to reclaim his mandate.
Obi said this in response to the appeal by Atiku that he should join him in the legal battle to retrieve his mandate from President Bola Tinubu at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday.
The former Vice President made the appeal while announcing his intention to challenge Tinubu on alleged inclusion of forged credentials credentials in the documents he submitted by the President to contest the 2023 presidential election at the Supreme Court.
However, Obi told Atiku that he was actually also trying to reclaim his ‘stolen mandate’ from Tinubu at the Supreme Court in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh.
The statement indicated that Labour Party candidate is currently in the “Supreme Court seeking to reclaim his stolen mandate and he is focused on that.”
“He has been in the vanguard of ensuring a just nation where justice must be the watchword, and he will not stop until Nigeria achieves the leadership it truly deserves.
“Obi has pontificated severally on the need for leaders to be good role models and to live a life worthy of emulation. This he has done by publicly putting his credentials in the open for verification. Nigeria will get better when men of integrity and honour drive the affairs of the nation.
“We therefore welcome every other interest willing to join us in our pursuit of a nation where justice shall reign. “
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said Atiku and people like him cannot distract the President from his focus on serving Nigerians.
APC said this in reaction to the press conference by Atiku in a statement signed by Mr Felix Morka, its party’s National Publicity Secretary.
“The news conference lacked purpose and delivered nothing, except the pitiful regurgitation of lies, mindless distortions and deliberate falsehood on his (Atiku)’s infantile obsession with the academic records of President Tinubu.
“For several weeks now, Nigerians and the world have watched with incredulity Abubakar’s display of utter desperation in his failed bid to become the President of Nigeria.
“Earlier today, he put his desperation in overdrive during his press conference where he addressed some of the issues in his appeal at the Supreme Court.
“He bandied unproven charges against President Bola Tinubu in a calculated attempt to shamelessly whip up public sentiments and inordinately pressure the Supreme Court,” Morka said.
He added that Abubakar should have known better than to demonstrate gross contempt of the highest court by making public comments on a matter he had submitted to the court for adjudication.
Morka noted that the former Vice-President held the unenviable title of Nigeria’s most prolific election loser and longest-running presidential candidate in the country’s history.
He added that the APC saw Abubakar’s recent US fishing expedition on Tinubu’s result from Chicago State University as the “last kick of a roundly rejected presidential aspirant”.
The APC spokesman, while condemning Abubakar’s action which he said had exposed Nigeria and the presidency in foreign land, sympathised with him for spending a lifetime pursuing an unrealised dream.
He urged the former Vice-President to graciously accept his defeat and quietly lick his political wounds with some dignity.
“Nigerians rejected him at the polls and he cannot get by subterfuge, what he failed to get through the ballot box.
“Nigerians validly elected President Tinubu to revamp our economy, restore security, create jobs, provide transformative infrastructure, improve electricity supply and enhance the living conditions of the masses.
“President Tinubu has undertaken to serve Nigerians and he will not be distracted by a man who has consistently failed to achieve his self-serving and brutal quest to become Nigeria’s president,” Morka stressed.