The presidential campaign council of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, of attempting to delegitimise the mandate given to its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
The APC took up Obi on the claim that he won last Saturday’s presidential election, claimed that there was no way Obi could have won, having played the most divisive religious politics in our history.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday declared Tinubu the winner with 8,794,726 votes.
INEC had said Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes while Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election in his reaction to the result declared by INEC in a press briefing on Thursday, claimed that he won the poll and said he would explore all legal options to reclaim his mandate.
Speaking at his first press conference on Thursday in Abuja after the Saturday elections, Obi who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes, according to the results announced by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said that he won the election but it was manipulated by the electoral umpire.
However, the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Council in a statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson, Festus Keyamo, described Obi’s claim as “outlandish”.
“We make this brief statement in reaction to the press briefing held earlier today by the defeated candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, wherein (in his now well-acknowledged penchant for spewing falsehood) he made the outlandish claim before the world that he won the 2023 Presidential Election, but he was robbed of the victory.
“Having been officially declared winner of the 2023 Presidential Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission and having received his Certificate of Return (along with his Vice-President Elect), the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have ignored these continuous false claims being peddled by Mr. Peter Obi and his supporters. But we recognise his motive of doing this is to simply delegitimise the mandate freely given to the President-Elect by the majority of Nigerians.
"Tinubu has extended a hand of fellowship to his opponents, including Obi to join hands with him in nation-building, Obi should embrace that hand of fellowship and brotherhood by the President-elect as a committed patriot instead of engaging in this crass grandstanding," the APC campaign council said.