- We Won; We’ll Reclaim Our Mandate As The “Election Was Blatantly Rigged,” Says Labour Party’s Datti Baba-Ahmed
The Independent National Electoral Commission has presented the Certificates of Return to the winner of the 2023 presidential election held on February 25, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his Vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima.
The presentation of the CoR was done by the chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Wednesday afternoon at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, venue of the Presidential election results collation.
Tinubu won the Presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress having polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar who came second by scoring 6,984,520 votes, Labour Party’s Peter Obi who scored 6,101,533 votes to come third, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party’s Rabiu Kwankwaso who emerged fourth out of the 18 contenders by scoring 1,496,687 votes.
Meanwhile, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, on Wednesday, vowed to reclaim the party’s mandate, noting that he and the LP Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won the election.
He spoke in Abuja at the party’s campaign headquarters on Wednesday, hours hours after the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, winner of the presidential election.
He noted that since election results were unable to be transmitted electronically, there was no election.
His words: “It’s our position that the results of the purported election did not meet the minimum standard of elections.”
“We will continue the struggle and we urge Nigerians to continue to struggle for their rights.
“Irrespective of the low level of confidence that we have in the system, we appeal to Nigerians to move out and vote for the Labour Party in the forthcoming governorship and state assembly elections.
“The Electoral Act 2022 provides that election result shall be electronically transmitted, this was not done it means the election did not hold.”
“We ask Nigerians to continue to exercise their civic duties like they did in the last exercise.
“We won this election, they refused to upload the results on IREV, the Nigerian people are winners, Nigerians are waiting for Peter Obi and I to get the power.
“We won the election as Labour Party. We are going to claim our mandate as Labour Party. We are going to rescue Nigeria as Labour Party.“