The Bola Tinubu presidency has offered reasons why the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, lost the February presidential election, adding that Atiku at 77 years should accept his defeat as a sportsman.
In a release by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy, the presidency said Atiku “lost because he went into a major election with a fragmented and tattered umbrella that could not hold together.”
Earlier at a press conference, Atiku had said he filed a lawsuit against President Bola Tinubu on his (Tinubu’s) academic credentials because of the future of Nigeria.
Atiku had also explained that by the judgment of the Supreme Court on October 26, 2023, the apex court had legalised forgery and illegality.
Giving more reason while he filed lawsuit against Tinubu on his academic credentials, he had said, “It is not about me, it is about our country, Nigeria and the future. It is about the kind of society we want to leave for the next generation and what kind of example we want to set for our children. It is about the reputation of Nigeria and Nigerians in the eyes of the world.”
But in its response, the presidency said Atiku “finally found his voice after more than 96 hours to respond to his trouncing at the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment on his grossly incompetent election petition appeal.”
Onanuga said, “We were wrong to expect that Atiku at 77 would play the statesman and sportsman and accept, with equanimity, the verdict of the highest court and the people of Nigeria.
“Instead, he unashamedly constituted himself into a demagogue and anarchist in the way and manner he sought to pull down and delegitimize all the institutions of State, all in a futile bid to achieve what he could not get via the ballot box.
“We want to tell Alhaji Atiku this: Nigeria is not doomed. It is only Atiku’s inordinate ambition to be President that is doomed. Nigeria is moving forward and set to achieve its manifest destiny as one of the most respected and successful nations of the world under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Contrary to Atiku’s gloomy submission on our democracy, we are excited to tell the world that our democracy is thriving and blossoming. It is the reason, for the first time, since 1999 the character of our National Assembly and its outlook reflect the diversity and plurality of the choices and preferences of voters as a rainbow coalition of different parties as opposed to the practice in the past where just two parties dominated the national parliament.
“Atiku lost because he went into a major election with a fragmented and tattered umbrella that could not hold together. There was no way Atiku and PDP could have won the election with the party platform under which he contested broken into four parts. If Atiku was not harboring a delusion of grandeur, we wonder how he could have envisaged any possible pathway to victory with Mr. Peter Obi’s Labour Party, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s NNPP and PDP G-5 Governors who took away possible PDP votes, while the APC went into the election as a strong, viable and unified entity.”
