The former Presidential Candidate of the People’s Trust in the 2019 Presidential Election, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has tasked the president-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and his vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima to pursue national reconciliation.
Olawepo-Hashim stated this while congratulating Tinubu and Shettima over their success in last Saturday’s presidential election.
In a statement released by his media office in Abuja yesterday, Olawepo-Hashim also prayed that “God will grant the duo the wisdom to bring the nation badly divided together and to bring succour immediately to the poor people of Nigeria who have suffered so much.”
He equally emphasised that “the business of National Reconciliation and Healing is urgent and cannot be delayed” to move the nation forward.
According to him, “Asiwaju’s government must not be the government of the victors alone but an inclusive government, a government of every useful hand for the task of National unity and prosperity.”
The APC Chieftain also commended the security agencies “who worked so hard to create the environment of peace.”
He maintained that “the Nigerian electorates who have borne so much hardship and provocations during the election are the real heroes of the election. The message from them is clear: they want real change.
“Our young people have been remarkable in this election. They have come out in large numbers to say loudly they want a better Nigeria. They represent the very best of our democracy and an immediate future that no force can stop,” he said.
To the INEC, Olawepo-Hashim noted “that the election agency has to work harder. It has to get its acts together as its conduct almost marred the election.”
He equally congratulated other participants particularly the Waziri Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar former Vice President and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the candidate of the Labour Party, His Excellency, Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra state who were very competitive in the Presidential election.
“Despite their reservations about the conduct of the election, particularly the collation of results, they have
continuously conducted themselves as patriots and Democrats that they are using all legal and legitimate channels to ventilate their grievances. This is the way of democracy,” he said
He equally urged INEC to “improve its operations in the conduct of the Gubernatorial and states assembly elections, and all relevant agencies to address the dark sides of the just concluded election such as wide scale voter intimidation observed in the reports of many election observers.
“Our democracy must mature beyond the perennial problem of voter intimidation, especially voters who are considered as non-indigenes.”
State governors, according to him, “must end the ugly practices of putting citizens under pressure to change their political choices through traditional rulers.
“We are a Republic and the franchise of all citizens must be protected regardless of their ethnic descent anywhere they have chosen to live.
“The democracy that my colleagues and I some three and half decades ago fought for and staked our lives for, is to allow the equality of all citizens and their rights to make their political choices in any corner of Nigeria they have chosen to live,” he said.
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