Tension as Peter Obi campaign insists on nationwide protest

The Peter Obi-Yusuf Datti Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has reiterated that its supporters won’t back down on their planned nationwide demonstration unless the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) grants its lawyers access to materials from the disputed February 25 presidential election.

POLITICS NIGERIA reports that INEC had on March 1 declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, winner of the election.

The commission’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who announced the results, said Tinubu polled the majority votes of 8,794,726, while Atiku secured 6,984,520 votes, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 6,101,533 votes and Rabi’u Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) got 1,496,687 votes.

Altogether, 18 candidates contested the presidential election.

The Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had rejected the results of the election during the collation of results and before Mr Tinubu was announced as the winner.

Both parties have also approached the court to challenge the electoral process and Tinubu’s victory.

They also faulted the electoral commission for not uploading the polling unit results on the INEC result viewing (IReV) portal before the collation of results began.

The parties insisted that it is part of the promises repeatedly made by the commission and that it is backed by some section of the Electoral Act 2022.

Speaking to the press, the spokesperson of the Obi-Datti campaign council, Yunusa Tanko, maintained there was no going back on mobilisation of their supporters to occupy INEC offices nationwide.

Tanko accused INEC of disobeying the order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to grant Obi and the party access to the certified true copies of materials used in the conduct of the poll.

“We didn’t fix a date for the protest because we deliberately wanted to give INEC up till Monday to respond to us first.

“But when they (INEC) fail to do what they are supposed to do, our supporters will hit the streets, by the grace of God. There is no going back,” he said.

Last week, the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, and other party leaders protested against INEC in Abuja.