Grand patron of Northern Alliance Committee (NAC), Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, has said despite the ongoing protest against the outcome of the 2023 presidential election and its being challenged in court, “the minority will have their say, while the majority will have their way at the end of the day.”
He said it was normal for politicians to feel aggrieved and reject the outcome of election, a trend he said had been the case since 1951 when elections were first conducted in Nigeria.
Yakasai, a founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) rallied support for the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying what is important now is for Nigerians to give him the maximum support in the task of wriggling the country out of the economic and social morass it is enmeshed in.
He spoke ata press conference organised by the Northern Alliance Committee to congratulate Tinubu on his emergence as president-elect.
The former liaison officer to former President Shehu Shagari, said, “I first participated in an election in 1951. That was the first time election was introduced in Nigeria. Since then, I have never witnessed an election where you do not have one or two more people protesting. And this is the beauty of democracy- to protest. They say the minority will have their say and the majority will have their way.
“As in any contest under democracy there is always the winner and the loser but at the end of it all the two will team up to move their country forward in the interests of the nation and its people. The country will move on and people will continue to engage in their various activities and all will march on to the next phase in nation building.
“The natural thing for all to do now is to give the president-elect their maximum support in the task of tackling many issues bedeviling our country. We need all hands to be on deck in handling these challenges. There are many challenges on ground ranging from economic, security and social issues. The task ahead of the new president-elect are enormous.
“We appreciate the maturity showed by a number of members of opposition parties by conducting themselves responsibly since the declaration of the results. We also thank the people of Nigeria for reposing their confidence in the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmad Tinubu,” he said.
On why NAC organised the conference, Yakasai said, “The aim of the briefing is to publicly convey our congratulations to the president-elect, Senator Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, on his victory in the just- concluded presidential election, reflect on the conduct and outcome of the election which produced the results of the election and INEC consequently declaring Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the election.
“We are delighted that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress and eventually elected as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Northern Alliance Committee actively participated in the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Committee. A number of members of the committee served in the presidential campaign council and campaigned at the grassroots – ward, local government, state and national levels.
“We are grateful to the Almighty God that the candidate we support has won the presidential election and is now the president-elect of our great country, Nigeria.
“We congratulate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the successful conduct of the presidential election and we urge them to take into consideration suggestions made by members of the public in conducting the next elections,” he said.
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