ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Tinubu, has reacted to the global campaign kick-started by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) on Wednesday against recognition of the February 25 presidential election result. Tinubu, candidate of the ruling party, APC, was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
NADECO has launched a global campaign against recognising Tinubu as president-elect, alleging that the election was grossly manipulated.
Addressing an international press conference on “2023 Nigerian Election Crisis”, NADECO, USA Executive Director, Lloyd Ukwu, declared Tinubu’s election as fraudulent, announcing that the premier Nigerian pro-democracy group has consequently severed ties with him.
Ukwu at the press conference held at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday appealed to the Joe Biden administration and the global community not to recognise Tinubu’s election. He described the press conference as “the first of its series of events planned over the next several weeks regarding the recently held presidential election in Nigeria”.
Below are parts of his remarks:
“NADECO alleges that the election results pronounced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (“INEC”), February 25-26, 2023, are fundamentally at odds with Nigerian election laws and constitute wholesale disenfranchisement of Nigerian voters caused by the pervasive rot of Nigeria’s increasingly kleptocratic political structure.
“NADECO demands that INEC draw back its curtains to let the full light of truth prove the transparency and veracity of the 2023 electoral processes. It is without question that nearly all of the electoral reforms implemented to safeguard the 2023 Nigerian elections have been savaged by INEC and scattered to the winds of tyranny. It is beyond debate that initial investigation into the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Elections inexorably discloses that Nigeria’s most recent election is the polar opposite of transparency, fairness and electoral integrity This election was polluted by blatant bribery and widespread corruption – even INEC itself has admitted to its abject failures to comply with the requisite transparency laws mandating real-time electronic transmission of election results from the polling units to the public, instead opting to cloak the electronic results in darkness before emerging with a declared rather than proved “winner” who is presently incapable of being fully embraced by the World.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC action clearly constitutes negligence per se and electoral fraud, as it violated the very statutory provisions and guidelines that are designed to protect against the type of fraud caused by its failure to transmit the results in real time. The people of Nigeria are supposed to be the ones the statute is designed to protect. Instead, they have found themselves at the receiving end of the resulting gross injustice.
“NADECO maintains that the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election is an attempt to disenfranchise the Nigerian people through the Four Horsemen of Democracy’s Doom – Bribery, Voter Intimidation, Insecurity, and Vote Rigging, all harnessed to skew the results of the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election.
“NADECO calls upon the people and the Judiciary of Nigeria and the International Community to join hands in a concerted effort toward global condemnation and absolute rejection of the hasty, hollow, and illegitimate result declared by INEC as being contrary to the will of the people and the rule of law.
“NADECO hereby takes the following positions to lead a global call for action to redress INEC’s duplicity that endangers democracy in the Giant of Africa:
“NADECO is gravely concerned about the irregularities, voter intimidation, violence, the breach of the National Electoral Act, and most importantly, the abrupt and hurried pronouncement of the dubious 2023 Presidential Election results. This, in our viewpoint, signals a wholesale disenfranchisement of voters in Africa’s largest nation.
“NADECO’s goals and singular mandate have always been to fight for the rule of law and democracy in Nigeria as Nigeria’s watchdog of democracy.
“NADECO hereby, as a first step, formally severs its relationship with Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a former founding member of NADECO (U.S.A.) for his participation in the worst electoral fraud in Nigeria’s recent history.
“NADECO and Tinubu fought Abacha as the military dictator who scuttled the will of the Nigerian people in 1993 June 12 elections. Ironically, exactly 30 years later, in 2023, “NADECO is fighting the same species of dictatorship but only this time a much more dangerous civilian dictatorship – a kleptocracy- mostly perpetuated by one of those who fought Abacha then. NADECO will not look the other way simply because the fraud was perpetrated by one of its founding members.
“NADECO urges the Biden administration to withhold any recognition of the product of the flawed election prior to proof the electoral process reflects the will of the Nigerian People and was without substantive corruption and fraud.
“NADECO further entreats the U.S. Congress to introduce a Resolution calling on the U.S. administration not to recognise the product of the election. It is the product of a poisonous tree.
“NADECO calls on the international community to support the empaneling of a team of internationally acclaimed technical experts to examine and analyze the INEC servers, and BVAS, etc. to extract the original votes.
“NADECO implores the Nigerian People and the Judiciary of Nigeria, acting in concert with the International Community, to join together in a concerted effort toward global condemnation and absolute rejection of the hasty, hollow, and illegitimate result declared by INEC as being contrary to the will of the people and the rule of law.
“NADECO demands that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (lNEC), Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, MUST resign or be removed immediately.
“NADECO urgently requests that all Countries worldwide, especially the United States, place an immediate visa ban upon Prof. Mahmoud.
“NADECO solemnly exhorts the U.S. to not deviate from its democratic standards in Africa just because it fears competition with China and seeks to curry favor with illegitimate dictators who come to power through bribery, force, intimidation, and vote rigging. The U.S. should come out and condemn the apparent corruption of the electoral process, and impose an immediate visa ban on those suspected to have compromised the polls.
“NADECO demands that President Buhari and INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu should be held jointly and severally liable and accountable by the Nigerian Courts and the International Community for what is currently happening across Nigeria in the days following the 2023 elections, and for what could happen in the next few weeks should INEC’s noxious banquet be forced down Nigerian’s throats.”
However, in a statement issued on Thursday, Tinubu, through his media adviser, Dele Alake, described Lloyd Ukwu as an impostor woking for the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi.
The full statement reads:
“Our attention has been drawn to an attempt by one, Lloyd Ukwu, a United States-based Nigerian claiming to be the Executive Director of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) to organise a press conference specifically intended to disparage and cast aspersions on the credibility of the 2023 Presidential Election freely and fairly won by the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“It must be stated emphatically and without any ambiguity that Ukwu is an impostor, hellbent on hoodwinking unsuspecting Nigerians in the diaspora and the international community to further a sinister agenda on behalf of the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, who came a distant third in the last presidential election.
“That Ukwu is attempting to fraudulently exploit the NADECO platform for Peter Obi against Asiwaju Tinubu is so laughable and a grave insult to the sensibilities of Nigerians, who witnessed first-hand the struggle by the pro-democracy group in restoring democratic rule to Nigeria and the roles played by prominent Nigerians, including independence hero and nationalist, Late Chief Anthony Enahoro, Asiwaju Tinubu, Professor Wole Soyinka, General Alani Ipoola Akinrinade, late Commodore Dan Suleiman, Late Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Chief Cornelius Adebayo and several other pro-democracy activists in exile to birth the freedom from military dictatorship that Nigerians enjoy today.
“We reiterate that Ukwu was very peripheral to this group of eminent statesmen and illustrious Nigerians who bore the pain and peril of exile so that our country could be free from the jackboot of military dictatorship of Late General Sani Abacha.
“It is imperative to remind Ukwu and his desperate paymasters that while Asiwaju Tinubu put his life and resources on the line during those challenging times, the likes of Peter Obi were either hobnobbing with the military or nowhere to be found.
“In trying to robe himself in an unbefitting garb, Ukwu’s desperation to confer credibility on his mission by using the NADECO name is bound to hit a dead-end and ignominy. To hide under the name of NADECO to deceive the international media and interest groups is an act that should be condemned by right thinking people.
“We are of a firm belief that Lloyd Ukwu is an agent of the Labour Party and Peter Obi, who were rejected by majority of Nigerians at the February 25 polls.
Majority of Nigerians have spoken loud and clear that Asiwaju Tinubu is their choice to lead Nigeria from May 29, 2023. There is absolutely nothing Ukwu and his ilk can do to change this fact of history.”
Dele Alake
Special Adviser to the president-elect,
March 9, 2023.
