Adamawa: Cheating won’t be allowed thrice – Atiku tells INEC

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has told the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that the Adamawa people won’t avail themselves to be ‘cheated three times in a row’.

Recall INEC had suspended the process after the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) declared the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Aisha Binani as the winner of the election.

In a statement by Paul Ibe, media aide to the PDP presidential flagbearer, Atiku called on Nigerians to the “game plan of trying to up-turn the democratic wishes of the people of Adamawa State in the governorship election in the state.”

Atiku said the initial decision of the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State to declare the APC candidate, Sen. Aisha Binani, as the winner of the election, is a case study “to the shambolic nature of the 2023 elections in general.”

He said: “In Adamawa, we are witnesses to a novel practice in election management where a Resident Electoral Commissioner announced the loser of an election as a winner.

“It is not in doubt that INEC has approached the Adamawa State election with a pre-set agenda of declaring the APC winner at all costs.

“It is, therefore, on this note that we wish to call the attention of the world to the scheme being perpetrated by INEC to compromise the electoral wishes of the people of Adamawa State.

“We also wish to inform the world that such behaviour by INEC has a natural consequence of unsettling the peace and security of the society.

“We have seen how INEC conducted the February 25 and March 18 elections against the run of play and challenging cheated candidates to go to the court, knowing full well the agenda that they are up to.

“It must be put on record that the people of Adamawa State will not allow themselves to cheat three times in a row. It must also be put on record that whatever the consequences of the scheme being scripted, both the INEC and those vested with state powers should be blamed for the consequences of such actions.

“That the APC candidate has a prepared acceptance speech is a pointer to the guarantee of a false victory which the INEC must have promised her.

“It is also our demand that the Adamawa REC and any other parties complicit in this treasonable act should be arrested immediately and prosecuted to the full extent of the law to serve as a deterrent to anti-democratic forces who may want to torpedo our democracy and provoke violence in our country,” he said.

Vanguard