The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has described the recently concluded Presidential elections as a rape of democracy.
Atiku, who vowed to challenge the election outcome in court, chastised the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, for hastily announcing the results and declaring Bola Ahmed Tinubu the winner despite alleged irregularities in the election’s conduct.
Atiku stated this during his first press conference on the election on Thursday in Abuja, noting that the 2023 presidential election presented Nigeria with a rare opportunity for the country’s reset, but was thwarted by the conduct of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
He said, “The battle to fight the wrong of Saturday is not about me but about Nigeria’s future. The battle is to deepen democracy and the future of the youth,” the former vice president said.
“INEC failed woefully to live up to expectations. The manipulations and fraud were unprecedented.
“It was a rape of democracy. The process and outcome of the presidential election were grossly flawed in every aspect,” Atiku added.
“I can still not understand why the electoral umpire was such in a hurry to conclude collation and announcement of the results, giving the number of complaints and irregularities of bypassing of BVAS, failure of uploading to INEC Results Viewing Portal ( IReV ) and unprecedented cancellation and disenfranchisement of millions of voters in breach of the Electoral Act and Commission’s own guidelines. It was indeed a rape of democracy.
“Having consulted with the leaders of our party and Nigerians of different walks of life. I have come to the conclusion with processes and outcome Presidential and National Assembly elections last Saturday was grossly flawed in every material in particular and must be challenged”.