An aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Oladimeji Fabiyi, said his principal was not to blame for the opposition’s failure to win the 2023 presidential election.
Fabiyi, who described himself as a PDP Stakeholder, was reacting to a social activist, Deji Adeyanju, who asked Atiku not to contest the 2027 election and also blamed him and Atiku, Peter Obi, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Nyesom Wike’s G-5 for Tinubu’s victory.
He said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), civil society and Adeyanju, should be blamed for the way the 2023 election went.
He said while the electoral commission failed to comply with its self-imposed regulations to conduct a credible, free and fair election in Nigeria, the civil society and Adeyanju were mute about the anomaly and chose to blame the opposition.
Atiku was the PDP presidential candidate in the poll won by President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Reacting however, Fabiyi
faulted Adeyanju’s submission on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election noting that it was “most unkind to presume that Atiku could have willfully stopped the ambition of Peter Obi alongside the decision of the Wike led G-5 to commit class suicide.”
He said the political reality of the 2023 election meant that these men were bent on pursuing their ambitions, which is permissible by the law.
“If you knew Atiku’s political antecedents, you would know that Atiku is a multi-party democrat and would be the last person to stop the ambition of an opponent for any reason whatsoever.
“Should any blame be passed on the 2023 Presidential Election, such blame should go to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for its failure to comply with its self-imposed regulations to conduct a credible, free and fair election in Nigeria.
“Quite a number of civil society organizations and personalities, including even you, Deji Adeyanju, canvassed for the electronic transmission of results. Curiously INEC did not keep to its words, and you here, Deji and others kept mute about the anomaly and chose to blame the opposition political figures for inadequacies that defined the 2023 presidential election.
“INEC made a humongous budget for the procurement of technologies and the infrastructure to ensure the transparency of the election, but the commission failed woefully on its own mandate.
“Civil society bodies, which ordinarily ought to be the bastion of democratic good governance, unconscionably played deaf and dumb to the development and turned their backs on the decision of the Court of Appeal when it pronounced that electronic voting was not a compulsory mandate on the conduct and collation of election results.
“Rather, unfortunately also no one heard your voice, Deji, when the Chicago State University released its discoveries that the truth that Bola A. Tinubu forged his academic credentials. Atiku’s lawyers fought vigorously to make discoveries of gross misconduct about the man who had just been elected President of Nigeria, but sadly, neither you Deji, nor any other civil society organization, caused a protest in demand for investigation into Tinubu’s fraudulent claims on his education and his possible impeachment.
“Leave Atiku Abubakar from your blame game and rather look through thyself for the blame.
“How dare you blame Atiku who did the unthinkable and brought to the fore what the ruling establishment would want hidden? Whose interest are you serving? Whatever interest it may be, I believe that it is the interest of anti-democratic elements,” he said.
