Osinbajo Affirms Presidential Election Was Not Rigged

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has justified the victory of the All Progressives Congress at the February 23 presidential and National Assembly elections.

At the meeting, the Vice President on Thursday night and the committee members were told that the APC did not rig the elections.

It was gathered that Osinbajo, a professor of law and an ordained pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, said the ruling party’s victory was not a fluke.

Sources at the meeting said the vice-president analysed the voting pattern and concluded that there was no way the PDP would have won the elections as being claimed by members of the main opposition party.

The source said, “The Vice President told us how the APC deserved the victory it got and how President Buhari had transformed the economy and worked on the security architecture of the country. He spoke on how the Federal Government had used the military to restore peace to the North-East.

“He said the APC got the huge number of votes it got from the North-East because the voters wanted to show gratitude to the President and his team. He also explained how the President had usually got huge number of votes from both the North-East and North-West even when he was a member of a small political party that did not have any structure.”

At the end of the meeting, our correspondent learnt that Cardinal Onaiyekan told the vice-president that the President must pursue reconciliation and that it would not be good to have a divided country.

“The Cardinal told him (Osinbajo) that the Federal Government must listen to the people, pursue reconciliation,” the source added.

Meanwhile, Atiku said that his decision to resort to legal means to claim his alleged stolen mandate was not discussed at his meeting with the Abdulsalami committee.

A statement issued by his media aide, Paul Ibe, said the former vice president had also called on Nigerians to vote for the PDP on Saturday.

He said, “The issue of Atiku Abubakar and his party’s recourse to legitimate actions to reclaim his stolen mandate was not discussed at the meeting. Atiku Abubakar restates that as a democrat, he will follow laid-down constitutional and democratic procedures to challenge the electoral malfeasance committed by the APC in cahoots with the INEC.

“Atiku Abubakar further urges Nigerians to come out en masse and vote in the March 9 gubernatorial and state Houses of Assembly elections for the PDP candidates and stay to defend their votes up to collation point.”