…“We don’t have any allegiance to any candidate’- Commission
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, yesterday led Governors elected on the platform of the Party and other leaders on a protest to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to submit a petition on the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.
The party accused the electoral body of manipulating the exercise in favour of the APC.
Other top party chieftains who were part of the protest include the PDP national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, Sokoto and Director-General of PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Governors Ahmadu Fintiri, of Sokoto and Adamawa States and other members of the Party’s National Working Committee.
Others are: PDP chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), Adolphus Wabara, and former PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, among others.
The protesters marched from Legacy House, PDP presidential campaign office, through British High Commission, Abuja the National University Commission (NUC) to the Maitama office of the electoral umpire. There was a heavy presence of security personnel, but the protest was largely peaceful. They were expected to present the petition to INEC against the conduct of the election.
The leaders of the Party camped outside the premises of the Commission, where they insisted that they must hand over their protest letter to the electoral umpire over the just concluded 2023 presidential election.
In its reaction, the INEC reiterated that it has no allegiance to any candidate or any political party. Its National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, stated so while addressing Atiku Abubakar and members of the PDP who protested at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
Speaking to the crowd, Okoye promised that INEC will “redress” the “grievances” of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) regarding the presidential election outcome, adding that the protest letter received from the PDP will be transmitted to Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman.
