President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has justified the defeat of the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party PDP, Atiku Abubakar, at the 2023 presidential election.
Tinubu insisted that the former Vice President is a serial loser and an unstable politician.
The former Lagos state governor, in his reply to the petition filed by the PDP and its candidate argued that Atiku had since 1993 consistently contested and lost elections both at the primary and general elections.
Tinubu, who stood for the election and won on the All Progressives Congress platform traced the history of Atiku’s loses in the presidential election to 1993 when he reportedly lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola; in 2007, when he lost the presidential election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Other elections he cited Atiku lost are in 2011, when he lost the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential primary election to President Goodluck Jonathan; in 2015, when he lost the APC primary election to President Muhammadu Buhari; in 2019, when he lost the presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari; and in 2023, when he again, lost the presidential election to him.
At the presidential election conducted by INEC (1st respondent) on 25th February, 2023, Tinubu claimed that having polled 8,794,726 votes across Nigeria (which was the highest amongst the 18 candidates at the election), and also satisfied all other requirements, he was validly returned as President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Justifying his own victory, Tinubu claimed to have always been a most consistent politician, who has not shifted political tendency and alignment while the 1st petitioner (Atiku) has consistently crisscrossed different political parties of Nigeria, including being a member of the PDP before joining the Action Congress in 2007, when he was the presidential candidate of the party.
He recalled how Atiku returned to the PDP before later joining the APC in 2015, where he contested the presidential primary election with Muhammadu Buhari before returning to the PDP in 2019 to emerge as its presidential candidate.
Tinubu bragged while he had always carried his supporters along and increased his political followership, Atiku has lost most of his followers in the process of moving from one political party to another.
The President-elect alleged that the emergence of Atiku as the presidential candidate of the 2nd petitioner (PDP) led to irreconcilable hostilities within the ranks of the party, causing the emergence of a group of governors tagged: G-5 Governors- comprising of the governors of Rivers, Oyo, Enugu, Abia and Benue, who opposed the Atiku and vowed to mobilise their people against his ambition.
Besides, Tinubu asserted that the petition by Atiku and PDP against him is a gross abuse of court process, adding that the petitioners have no right to present such a petition, having peremptorily filed an Originating Summons at the Supreme Court on 28th February, 2023, praying the Apex Court to assume original jurisdiction on the same subject of their petition; and asking the court to nullify the entire presidential election.
He therefore asked that the petition be dismissed for lacking in merit, substance, bona fide, sincerity and for also being frivolous, vexatious, highly misconceived, disclosing no reasonable cause of action and for constituting a crass abuse of the judicial process.
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