The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) presidential candidate, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, has finally unveiled plans to go into litigation with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over declared results of the April 16 presidential poll, just as the PDP said they were prepared to meet him in court.
Yinka Odumakin, the General’s spokesmanrevealed that the CPC had enough evidence to prove that the poll was rigged, saying that “The party and a team of lawyers are meeting on that (the planned case). The CPC as a party will challenge the result in court, but Gen. Buhari as a person will not challenge it because he had gone to court in the past and he thought that was enough.”
“INEC agreed that computer cheated us. He (Jega) has a letter, which was given to him on camera. He went on break for four hours, only to come back to announce a bogus result.”
“In the South-South and South-East, where turnout was between 20 and 40 per cent, 99.9 per cent results was recorded for the PDP.”
“We are collating all this information and confronting INEC with it. And then we will go to court. The party will go to court on this issue.”
The National Legal Adviser of the PDP, Chief Olusola Oke, while speaking on behalf of the party, said “We are not afraid of going to court. We would meet him at the tribunal where we hope and promise to defend the mandate giving to the President by over 22 million Nigerians. We have nothing to fear by his going to court. We will meet there. Buhari is aware that this election had been described by local and international observers as one of the freest elections in the country.
“The Buhari case is worrisome because of the promise he had made to the electorate that he would not challenge the result of the election in court. It is unfortunate that he is unable to stand by his own words. He has lied to Nigerians and we are not against that, it is left for the people to judge the kind of a man he is. The most honourable thing Nigerians expected of Buhari was to live by the promise.”
Buhari had during the 2011 campaign claimed that he would not go to court after his efforts to reverse the losses in 2003 and 2007 were rejected by the courts.
Buhari, former military head of state, polled 12,214,853 votes to fall closely behind President Goodluck Jonathan who scored 22,495,187 votes. But the CPC has faulted votes recorded by the PDP in the South-East and South-South, claiming that they were grossly inflated.
Meanwhile, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, while reacting to the development said, “Going to court is what the law provides for. That is perfect.”
