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.As Gemade, Bamidele ask Nigerians to ignore ex-President’s anti-democratic stand
.Avoid acts capable of overheating polity – NOA
CHIDIMMA UCHEGBU and Adekunle Adesuji Abuja
The Federal Government has urged former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to truncate the 2023 General Elections with his inciting, self-serving and provocative letter on the elections.
In a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said what the former President cunningly framed as an ‘appeal for caution and rectification’ is nothing but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process and a willful incitement to violence.
The Minister expressed shock and disbelief that a former President could throw around unverified claims and amplify wild allegations picked up from the street against the electoral process.
”Though masquerading as an unbiased and concerned elder statesman, former President Obasanjo is in reality a known partisan who is bent on thwarting, by subterfuge, the choice of millions of Nigerianvoters,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed recalled that the former President, in his time, organized perhaps the worst election since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, hence he is the least qualified to advise a
President whose determined effort to leave a legacy of free, fair, credible and transparent election is well acknowledged within and outside Nigeria.
”As the whole nation waits with bated breath for the result of last Saturday’s national elections, amid unnecessary tension created by professional complainants and political jesters, what is expected froma self-respecting elder statesman are words and actions that douse tension and serve as a soothing balm.
”Instead, former President Obasanjo used his unsolicited letter to insinuate, or perhaps wish for, an inconclusive election and a descent into anarchy; used his time to cast aspersion on electoral officials who are unable to defend themselves, while surreptitiously seeking to dress his personal choice in the garb of the people’s choice. This is duplicitous,” he said.
The Minister reminded the former President that organizing elections in Nigeria is not a mean feat, considering that the voter population of 93,469,008 in the country is 16,742,916 more than the total number of registered voters, at 76,726,092, in 14 West African nations put together.
”With a deployment of over 1,265,227 electoral officials, the infusion of technology to enhance the electoral process and the logistical nightmare of sending election materials across our vast country, INEC seems to be availing itself creditably, going by the preliminary reports of the ECOWAS Electoral Observation Mission and the Commonwealth Observer Group, among other groups that observed the election.
”Therefore, those arrogating to themselves the power to cancel an election and unilaterally fix a date for a new one, ostensibly to ameliorate perceived electoral infractions, should please exercise restraint and allow the official electoral body to conclude its duty by announcing the results of the 2023 national elections.
”After that, anyone who is aggrieved must follow the stipulated legal process put in place to adjudicate electoral disputes, instead of threatening fire and conjuring apocalypse,” he said.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Sen. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele has asked Nigerians to ignore and totally disregard the ill-motivated advice by former President Olusegun Obasanjo calling for the halting of the collation of the results of the just-concluded Presidential elections and the cancellation of the entire elections on the spurious, flimsy and unjustifiable excuse that the election is not credible.
In a statement issued by his Media Office on Tuesday, Bamidele stressed that the sudden call on INEC to cancel the 2023 Presidential elections and halt the on-going collation of the election results by former President Obasanjo is a deliberate attempt to truncate Nigeria’s democracy, an open invitation to anarchy and a devious assault on the collective civility and sensibility of the people of Nigeria who came out enmasse to exercise their franchise in fulfillment of their civic responsibilities on February 25th, 2023.
Bamidele added that It is also an utter disrespect to the democratic world and the delegation of international observers who monitored the election with keen interest and adjudged it as a free, fair and credible process, describing it as a great improvement on the previous elections in Nigeria.
According to the Federal lawmaker who is also the Chairman, Southern Senators’ Forum, ‘’Obasanjo’s unsolicited reactionary posturing on the just-concluded presidential election is characteristic of his anti-democratic and subversive tendencies which he had displayed on several occasions over the years.
“This is the same Obasanjo who publicly adopted Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party and urged Nigerians to vote for him. Unfortunately, Peter Obi lost woefully in the polling unit right in front of his (Obasanjo’s) house in Abeokuta. Apparently, Obasanjo is jittery because of the outcome of the election which invariably may not be in the favour of his adopted candidate. He is a bad loser ”
Bamidele maintained that it is ridiculous and highly disheartening for Obasanjo to utterly question the credibility of an election where many sitting Governors, Senators and Members of the House of Representatives failed to win their National Assembly elections in their respective States and where the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress did not win in Lagos State and he accepted it in good faith.
He added that Obasanjo as incumbent President of Nigeria was alleged to have massively rigged the 2003 general elections for his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He perpetrated the same executive lawlessness in 2007 when he foisted Umar Yar’adua on Nigerian people, following his failed third term agenda which was geared towards perpetuating himself in power.
He said, ” how could former President call for cancellation of the election where the Presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), failed to win in Lagos State, an election where President Muhammadu Buhari lost Katsina State to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), an election where the Director General of APC Presidential Campaign, Governor Simon Lanlong was unable to win for his party in his State, an election in which the Governor of Kano State, Umar Ganduje and the Governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade failed to deliver respectively for their political parties, as not free and fair elections.
” We are all living witnesses of what transpired during Obasanjo’s tenure when he said “election is a do.or die affair”, in which many results were announced when people were still voting. I pray that Nigeria will not witness such dark days of Obasanjo when his own anointed candidate, Late former President, Umar Musa Yara’dua himself admitted that the election that brought him to power was not free, fair and credible.
“This is an election in which the former President has an anointed candidate and was unable to deliver his polling unit, ward and State for the same candidate.
“It is obvious that Obasanjo is pained that he is unable to install his own candidate with the outcome of the election and that is the reason for his emergency televised address in Abeokuta, Ogun State.”
Bamidele pointed out that the credibility of the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections is unprecedented in the political history of Nigeria, such that it is largely devoid of financial inducement and electoral malpractices.
He averred that the pockets of violence and irregularities that trailed the process in some parts of the country are not enough reasons for anybody to call for cancellation.
Bamidele said it is laughable that a perennial enemy of democracy and subversive ruler like Obasanjo could be referring to any election as not credible enough.
Bamidele therefore called on all well-meaning Nigerians and lovers of democracy not to keep silent in the face of Obasanjo’s onslaught, urging them to rise up to promptly defend the sanctity of Nigeria’s fledgling democracy and the constitutionality of the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections. He added that Nigerians must condemn the unjust, undignified, undemocratic and unpopular interjection of Obasanjo in the ongoing electoral process.
He also enjoined Nigerian youths to totally ignore Obasanjo and his cohorts that are making devious and desperate moves to plunge the entire nation into another season of civil unrest and political instability just because of their failure to win elections, adding that the youth should not be swayed into any action capable of derailing the fledging democracy in Nigeria, saying they should rather question the credibility and ulterior motives of the anti-democratic forces calling for election cancellation.
Bamidele urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to proceed with the collation and declaration of results and ensure that the winner of the 2023 presidential election is announced without any delay in order for Nigeria to move forward as a democrat.
Also, A former Minister and an eminent statesman, Chief Barnabas Gemade has urged lovers of democracy and rise up against former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s call for the cancellation of the results of the February 25 presidential elections.
Gemade, who stated this on Tuesday at a press conference in Abuja described Obasanjo’s call as a sad moment of Nigeria’s political journey.
He said Obasanjo was at the arrowhead of the group that annulled the June 12,1993 presidential elections,saying that he has started playing the same card thirty years after.
Avoid acts capable of overheating polity – NOA
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has appealed to Nigerians to remain calm and avoid acts and utterances capable of overheating the polity.
Its Director-General, Dr Garba Abari, who made the appeal in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, cautioned Nigerians as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was collating the presidential election results
Abari urged Nigerians to conduct themselves with decorum, especially regarding the still on-going collation of results.
He called on Nigerians to be patient and allow for the completion of the result collation process, bearing in mind that there are available legal means for redress of electoral grievances.
“As a people, we have invested so much in the 2023 general elections, both as a nation and as individual citizens, to let anything truncate the process at any point.
“I call on political, religious and traditional leaders and indeed all leaders of thought, to exercise caution in their utterances at this time.
“They should also please use their influence to promote peace, restraint and recourse to legal means alone at this critical moment of our national experience.
“I call on Nigerian youths to shun any voice of temptation urging resort to any unlawful means in ventilating any objections you may have to the election result collation process and its outcome.
“Remember that no Nigerian, young or old, has anything to gain from setting the nation on the path of violence and instability,’’ the NOA chief said.
According to him, the survival of the country far outweighs any other consideration and nothing should provoke people even at this time.
“We have, as a people, worked together to achieve the peace that we enjoy today. We have worked hard to ensure that this election happened peacefully.
“We have more to gain as a nation by remaining peaceful and orderly as we await the result of the election.
“Finally, we thank Nigerians for their impressive turnout for the election.
“That is why at this time, what is needed is calm and order to ensure that, as one people, we will overcome the challenges we have observed in the process,’’ he said. (NAN)
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