People’s Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2019 presidential election Atiku Abubakar has rejected the results and vowed to contest his lost at an election tribunal.
“I hereby reject the result of February 23, 2019 sham election and will be challenging it in court,” Atiku said hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared All Progressives Congress’s President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the election.
“With regards to the Presidential elections that took place on February 23, 2019, it is clear that there were manifest and premeditated malpractices in many states which negate the results announced.”
INEC announced Buhari as the winner of the election after he polled 15, 191, 847 votes while Atiku Abubakar, a former Nigerian vice president between 1999 and 2007, got 11, 262, 978 votes.
The election was marred by killings and outright violent attacks against electoral officials at different locations in the country.
The Cross River State resident electoral commissioner told The Guardian on Sunday that 18 members of the National Youth Service Corps who served as ad-hoc workers during the election were kidnapped. 14 of them, he said, were released afterwards. The police in the state said it was not aware of the kidnappings.
In Lagos, polling units were attacked by political thugs in areas where they believed would jeopardise the chances of their supported parties.
These attacks, Atiku said, were a part of a deliberate attempt to suppress voting in PDP strongholds in Lagos.
The Situation Room, an umbrella group of more than 70 civil society organisations, said at least 39 persons were killed during the Saturday polls.
“Situation Room reiterates that no election in Nigeria should cost the life of any citizen and condemns in the strongest terms the lack of empathy, concern and sensitivity by the police class regarding these events,” it said in a statement.
16 persons were suspected killed in Rivers, four in Bayelsa and two in Delta state. There were also confirmed fatalities in Kogi and Oyo State.
He said, “The suppressed votes in my strongholds are so apparent and amateurish, that I am ashamed as a Nigerian that such could be allowed to happen. How can total votes in Akwa-Ibom, for instance, be 50% less than what they were in 2015?
“Another glaring anomaly is the disruption of voting in strongholds of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and diverse other states, with the authorities doing little or nothing and in some cases facilitating these unfortunate situations.”
