Politics

…denies accusation of rigging in the southeast

…drums support for Lagos, Enugu, Plateau guber candidates

By Kennedy Nnamani

PETER Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 presidential election, has insisted that he won the election in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared winner.

Speaking on the Morning Show of Arise TV, Obi said that Tinubu did not win the just concluded election.

“The declared winner of the election did not win,” he said. “To win is to win the people.”

He added that democracy is all about the people, therefore to be the winner of an election is to have the mandate of the people.

“If you did not win the people, you have not won the election,” he added.

Obi therefore urged all ‘Obidients’ and all Nigerians to remain calm while he and his legal team pursue all legal means to prove his claim of victory.

Reacting to the call of some religious leaders for him to accept the result as declared by the electoral body, Obi stated that Nigerians have over time celebrated what he called political rascality and irregularities and thereby making corruption and incompetence to thrive in the country.

According to him, some religious leaders are using the name of God in vain by accepting that all things happen according to the Will of God.

“How can God Will that the people should be poor? How can God Will that people remain in darkness?”  

He added that the problem of Nigerians is accepting what is unacceptable.

On the claim that he rigged elections in the southeast where he got over 75 per cent of the total votes cast, Obi stated that he has never joined in any form of election rigging.

“I have never and I will never ask anybody to add one vote for me. I have never paid anybody to add one vote for me.

“People know me and they know I keep to my promises,” he said.

He recalled that in 2019, when he was the running mate to Atiku Abubakar under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Anambra state gave PDP over 90 percent so “I am actually surprised that I did not get 100 percent of the votes in Anambra state”.

He said that he won in Rivers State and that it can be proved if all the votes in Rivers State were counted.

Obi also wondered if he also had the machinery to rig in Abuja and especially in Aso Rock.

He said that people voted massively for him across the country because they believed in “what I stand for and what I do”.

Obi, who was the former Governor of Anambra state, called on voters to go out en mass to support the Labour Party governorship candidates in the states where the party has candidates.

Speaking on Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, LP, candidate of Lagos State, Chijioke Edeoga of Enugu state and Patrick Sunday Dakum of Plateau state, Obi noted that they are candidates with credibility, competence and track records.

According to him, it is about having competent, credible people who have track records “and where we think we have good people, we will support them.”

“We want to build a new politics that thrive on competence, sincerity,” he said.

He therefore called on Nigerians to disregard the accusations against the Rhodes-Vivour of Lagos state based on ethnicity, adding that those are the activities of people who are trying to hide under what does not exist.

“The Labour Party candidate in Lagos is the best candidate. I support him 100 percent. He is a man of character and he is a Lagosian,” Obi said.

KN

Tags: Chijioke Edeoga Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour Kennedy Nnamani Peter Obi