THE All Progressives Congress (APC) has advised former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to accept his defeat as an elder statesman.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Felix Morka, who gave the advice in a statement on Monday, October30 in Abuja, while reacting to a news conference addressed by Atiku earlier in the day, said: “Still bemoaning his electoral loss, Atiku staged a press conference, where he delivered a long, windy, incoherent and preposterous speech unbefitting of a former vice president.
“Atiku regurgitated his illusory claim that President Bola Tinubu did not win the February 25, 2023 presidential election at the news conference.”
Morka said Atiku’s allegations that the election was characterised by irregularities was roundly dismissed by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) and the Supreme Court as unsubstantiated and unproven, adding that nowhere in Atiku’s speech did he state that he won the election, thereby corroborated the courts’ findings and decision that he did not, in fact, win the election.
He said it is delusional for Atiku and his party to have expected the courts to rely on their bogus, flimsy, unverifiable, uncorroborated claims and could not have relied on his “illogical and hearsay evidence to upturn an election that was conducted in substantial compliance with the constitution and electoral laws of our land.
“For a serial election loser, whose life ambition is to rule the country, we understand how pained and utterly distraught Atiku must be.
“However, to continue to deny and disrespect the collective will of Nigerians, disparage the judiciary, incite rage and call our democratic institutions into question is beyond the pale.”
Morka wondered why it was so hard for the PDP candidate to accept the popular choice of the electorate and the valid decisions of the courts, further wondering if Atiku would have vilified the judiciary, as he is currently doing, if he had won the election and was upheld by the courts as winner.
The APC spokesman said as rightly pointed out by Atiku at his news conference, the issues at stake were not all about him, but about the country, maintaining that Nigeria was greater than Atiku’s unrealised ambition to be president that Nigeria must move and had moved on.
“Regrettably, you missed the opportunity of your press conference to redeem your prestige as an elder and statesman by rising above political pettiness and offer befitting congratulations to Tinubu on his electoral victory.
“Rather than vindicate you, history will not forget your unwillingness to put the country first and above your personal political ambition,” Morka stated.
