The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC) has alleged what it described as surreptitious plan by the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) and Labour Party to shop for a court order to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) from announcing the result of last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections.
INEC started the collation of results for the elections on Sunday at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
Director of Public Affairs and campaign council spokesperson, Festus Keyamo (SAN) stated this in Abuja on Monday, following attempts by the opposition to disrupt the ongoing collation and announcement of the presidential election results.
Keyamo, who was in the company of all the directors on the media and publicity directorate of the campaign council, warned tbe judiciary to guide and guard against being used by the politicians to scuttle democracy and throw the country into turmoil.
The Minister of State, Labour and Employment alleged that the two leading opposition parties are hell-bent on scuttling the country’s democratic process.
He said: ” We have credible information that PDP and Labour Party are presently shopping for a court order to stop the announcement of the result like the June 12, election.
“We have credible information from my colleagues at the bar, who is consulting for colleagues in the inner bar – the Senior Advocates like me, who have told them to go and prepare papers and proceed to court to secure an order to stop INEC from announcing the result of last Saturday election.
“My appeal to the judiciary is to remember the infamous Justice Ikpeme. We should not allow the replay of that situation of Justice Ikpeme and what happened to her thereafter.
“Please, please, please we (judiciary) should not scuttle this democracy.”
Keyamo also appealed for the understanding of the international community and advised foreign observers at the just concluded presidential and national assembly elections to remain focused on their primary assignment, insisting that they must remain focused on their primary assignment, which was the election coverage.
Special Adviser of Media and Publicity to the campaign council Dele Alake expressed concerns over inciting comments and call to violence by some spokespersons of the opposition parties, especially the PDP and LP.
Alake called on the State Security Services and the Police to immediately restrain two spokespersons of PDP Dino Melaye, Dele Momodu and Pastor Paul Enenche of Dunamis Church from their clear call to violence.
According to him: “Melaye’s tweet threatening violence, Momodu going on the TV to announce a purported winner and Enenche’s hate speech from the pulpit violate every law of the land. They should not go scot-free.
“When failure stared them in the face, rather than accept the outcome with dignity like good democrats would, some sore losers began shopping for ways to cut corners or scuttle the process. We have seen many doctored results giving false victory to the Labour Party in places where it performed abysmally poorly. The idea was to give its followers hope and prepare them for a planned street insurrection.
“The PDP has employed almost similar tactics despite secretly admitting defeat. They went about with mouthwatering offers looking for willing partners that would help them subvert the will of the people.
“Perhaps having failed to procure officials to help it doctor results, the PDP earlier today rented willing airwaves to make very dangerous statements on the election.
“We also wonder why agents of the party at the Abuja collation centre are pushing insistently for the uploading of the results on the INEC portal when section 60 of the Electoral Act is clear about who has the power to do so at the polling unit. The state collation officer has no such power. The INEC chairman, who collates what has been collated from the states also has no such power.
“Is the PDP calling for the upload to enable it to hack the system to give it a false victory?”
Expressing confidence in victory, the APC PCC said it will wait for the full electoral process to take its toll on its candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be announced as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
“Unlike what the PDP spokesmen have done, we will not announce ourselves as winners despite having the figures which affirm our anticipated victory.
“We will abide by the laws by allowing the electoral umpire to do its job.”
