Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who was a former coordinator in the disbanded All Progressives Congress Campaign Council, have been urged to withdraw their cases from the election petition tribunal and support President Bola Tinubu’s efforts to form a government of national unity.
On Thursday, Ogbole made the appeal during a press conference in Abuja.
“Even though we are conscious that it is the fundamental right of all aggrieved candidates to seek redress in a court of law, in the interest of the nation, we wish to use this avenue to crave the indulgence of all aggrieved candidates, including Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi who are seeking redress in the tribunal to withdraw their litigations against the president and join forces with him in the proposed national unity and all-inclusive government,” she said.
“We can see from all indications that the Tinubu-led administration is ready to work assiduously to establish peace, development, and progress in Nigeria, so we can say this with confidence. Since Tinubu is executing their intentions, we are confident that all candidates from other political parties have the same patriotic goal as the national interest as their top priority. They could and should take this cooperation a step further by working together.
Her appeal comes hours after Atiku requested a digital forensics expert to testify in support of its tribunal petition challenging the president.
The 26th witness in the petition, Hitler Nwala, who was led in testimony by the petitioners’ attorney, Chris Uche, SAN, during the petition hearing’s resumed hearing, provided a report of his research into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System.
The witness claimed that his research demonstrates that the Federal Capital Territory’s presidential election results were purposefully removed from the BVAS system.
But according to the former campaign coordinator for Tinubu, Obi and Atiku must drop their legal actions and collaborate with the president to fulfil the promises made to Nigerians in his ‘Renewed Hope’ campaign platform if they want to show the world that their struggles are not motivated by personal animus or self-interest.
She asserts that Tinubu’s administration has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is transformational in nature and has enormous potential to bring Nigerians back together and put the country in a breakthrough position.
“The current administration is doing extremely well already, as evidenced by the majority of the nation-building initiatives he has undertaken, such as the removal of fuel subsidies, the education bill that was signed into law, the demonstration of extraordinarily high fairness and equity in the appointment of key principal office holders, just to name a few.
We’re also taking this chance to ask all of our elder statesmen from all over Nigeria to quickly and without further delay invite all parties who have been wronged to a round table discussion and urge them not to undermine the will of the people by creating distractions instead of working with the government that Nigerians freely elected to change their story through unprecedented development for the benefit of all.
“You will concur with us that now is not the time for additional diversion; it is time to advance Nigeria in a constructive manner. In the interest of the country, this is a call for a unity government, she declared.
Cesnabmihilo Nihu-Aken’Ova, a former Social Democratic Party presidential candidate in the run-up to the 2023 election, added his voice to hers and made the same appeal, saying it was clear from the results of the vote that the former Lagos governor had won.
“Tinubu’s victory in this election was obvious. According to what we have observed thus far, those who are in court are wasting our time. Even the candidates for governorship and the National Assembly have been sworn in by this point, which means the campaigning is over. As a candidate for president, I am speaking from my own perspective, she said.
