Atiku won Saturday’s presidential election, says PDP

It therefore rejected the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the president-elect and asked that the certificate of return issued to him be withdrawn.

The opposition party said it had commenced legal action to nullify Tinubu’s victory and ensure that Atiku Abubakar, its candidate, is declared the winner.

On Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu as the winner of the election that was held on Saturday and also issued him a certificate of return.

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the INEC, said Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes; Atiku Abubakar of the PDP had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was next with 6,101,533 votes.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Debo Ologunagba, PDP spokesperson, said the party “rejects in its entirety the declaration and return” of Tinubu as the president.

The statement read in part, “The PDP demands that INEC immediately withdraws the certificate of return issued to the presidential candidate of the APC and cancel the presidential election declaration in line with its powers under section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022..

“The party insists that INEC in declaring the APC Presidential Candidate as the winner acted contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the Electoral Act 2022 and the INEC Guidelines and Regulations for the conduct of the 2023 Presidential election.

“The PDP holds that its Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, clearly won the February 25, 2023, Presidential election having evidently scored the majority of lawful votes cast by Nigerians at the Polling Units.

“Sadly, the election was marred by deliberate malpractices including the non-use of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC’s refusal/failure to transmit directly the results from Polling Units to its Server/Website in flagrant violation of Section 60 (4)(b) of the Electoral Act 2022.

“This violation of the Electoral Act by INEC as attested to by political parties, voters, Nigerians of all walks of life as well as local and international observers, paved the way for the alteration, falsification, switching of results and allocation of figures in favour of the APC.

“Consequently, our party and its presidential candidate have commenced an action for legal redress to reclaim our victory in the 2023 presidential election.”

The PDP asked its supporters to “remain calm, resilient, resolute and steadfast in the defence of democracy and the victory of our party in the 2023 presidential elections”.