Atiku, Ayu, Tambuwal, Dino Others Storms INEC Headquarters Over Presidential Election Disputes
By Halima Abdulkadiri
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has on Monday embarked on a mass protest march to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Abuja.
The party’s national chairman Iyrochia Ayu, leads the top hierarchy of the party in the peaceful protest to register their displeasure over the conduct of the February 25th Presidential and National Assembly election.
According to the Presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar on Thursday, stated that preliminary assessment has shown that the election is the worst conducted in the country since the return to democratic rule.
The party is also protesting the “intensive manipulation and fraud that attended this election” which it has also described as “unprecedented in the history of our nation”.
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The protest rally also involved members of the national working committee (NWC), PDP Youths Coalition, as well as members of the party’s Presidential campaign council, who are all clad in black attires, as a symbolic expression of their displeasure.
At a recent press briefing after the election, Atiku stated that “ I can still not understand why the electoral umpire was in such a hurry to conclude collation and announcement of the result, given the number of complaints of irregularities of bypassing of the BVAS, failure of uploading to the IREV, and unprecedented cancellations and disenfranchisement of millions of voters in breach of the Electoral Act and the commission’s guidelines. It was indeed a rape of democracy.”
He argued further, in response to questions from media personnel at the protest that, though the party is already in court and would continue to pursue the legal means to seek redress, but that the protest, which is legal under the Nigerian constitution, is to express their misgivings publicly, and of course, to deliver officially, a letter from the party, to the INEC.
Ibrahim Bashir, the director of administration of the PDP presidential campaign council, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, invited all the party’s national leadership, including Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, vice presidential candidate, Governors of Akwa Ibom and chairman of PCC, Udom Emmanuel, Sokoto state and DG of PCC, and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, to participate in the protest rally.
Other Governors include those of Bayelsa, Edo, Adamawa, Bauchi, Taraba and Osun States. Senate Presidents, David Mark and Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Board of Trustee Members (BOT), members of the national executive committee (NEC), as well as PDP Senators and House of Representatives Members.
Members of the PCC; Leadership of People Living With Disabilities and all other Stakeholders to a protest match to INEC Office as follows.
