Tinubu’s Team, in the US, says Feb. 25 presidential election most credible in Nigeria’s political history, sacrosanct

The Tinubu’s Team has asserted the February 25 presidential election was the freest and most credible ever conducted in Nigeria going by the number of deaths recorded during the election.

The Team said statistically, this year’s presidential election was free, fair, and credible.

According to it, statistics showed that 2023 recorded the lowest casualty rates ever.

“During the 1964/65 elections about 200 deaths were recorded as a result of election violence; 1993 election recorded 100 deaths; 1999 election recorded 80 deaths; 2003 polls recorded 100 deaths and 2007 polls recorded 300 deaths. The 2011 polls recorded 800 deaths, the 2015 polls recorded 100 deaths, and the 2019 polls recorded 150 deaths. However, the 2023 polls recorded no more than 28 deaths as a result of election violence. So, the claim that this is the “worst” election so far is totally unfounded,” it said.

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In a media parley held with the international media at the National Press Centre, Washington D.C, United States on Wednesday, April 12th 2023, by Representatives of the president-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu – Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour; Sunday Dare, Minister of Youth and Sports and Ajuri Ngelale – the Team noted that the parley was intended to “clear some of the fallacies that have been peddled around the world by the sore losers at the said election.”

In the briefing, entitled: “The Nigerian Presidential Election 2023: Separating The Facts From Fiction”, the Team said the reports of some irregularities and violence in some polling units could not have affected the overall outcome of the elections too. “There are 176,974 polling units in Nigeria and infractions and violence were recorded in less than one percent of these units. How could these have affected the overall results of the elections?,” it queried

It noted that the elections were so credible that it threw up some upsets in our otherwise settled demography. “For the first time, 20 sitting governors lost their states, mostly those of the ruling party. Seven governors who sought elections into the Senate failed to scale through. This has never happened in the history of Nigeria. In addition, the President-elect lost his home state (Lagos State); the sitting President lost his home State (Katsina State); the Director-General of the Campaign lost his home State (Plateau State); the ruling Party Chairman lost his home State (Nassarawa State); the Chairman of the ruling Party’s Governor Forum lost his home State (Kebbi State) and the ruling party lost some of its traditional strong holds like Yobe State, Kaduna State and Kano State. All these go to show that it was a keenly contested election and one of the most credible in our history,” it stressed.

The Team said to the credit of President Muhammadu Buhari, he signed into law a Bill that seeks to improve our electoral process by introducing technology as a means of accrediting voters at the polling units. This is known as the ELECTORAL ACT, 2022.

It said that there was also complete non-interference in the political process by State institutions.

“There were no reports of deployment of security agents or state apparati in support of the candidate of the ruling party. In fact, in some instances, the opposition celebrated the fact that our candidate had no support of the Government.

“These led to well-published reports (albeit false) that the President was not in support of the candidate of his own party,” it said

Recalling, it said that about eight months to the elections, the main opposition, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) suffered some major set-backs, adding its vice-presidential candidate in 2019, Peter Obi moved to the Labour Party (LP) with his supporters, mainly from his region of origin, the South-East.

“Another of the party’s main pillar of support in the North-West, Alhaji Musa Kwakwanso moved to the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP), taking with him a chunk of the party’s supporters in that region. Five (5) out of the 14 governors of the PDP, publicly announced they would not be campaigning for or supporting its Presidential Candidate (Alhaji Atiku Abubakar).

Meanwhile, the ruling party remained one huge, indivisible entity with no departure of any of its elected officials or public dissent from them. It was in this state of affairs that all the parties went into the elections,” it informed.

It explained that the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) controlled 21 out of the 36 States of the country and the FCT before the elections with elected governors; whilst the main opposition, the PDP had 14 governors and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) had one governor, while the Labour Party had no single governor or elected official at any level of government.

It said contrary to the false outcry by the opposition, the main technological device, Bi-modal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) did not fail on the election day.

According to it, “all the local and international observers scored the use of BVAS very high, with one local body called YIAGA, working in coalition with the EU and other International Observers, saying it recorded 88% success in all the polling units it monitored.

“The Nigeria Bar Association also issued its report saying only 8 percent of voters were not satisfied with the process on that day. The portal that the opposition made so much noise about, IREV, is just a viewing portal, which has nothing to do with accreditation or verification of voters or even the counting or recording of votes.

“While we hold no brief for the Electoral Commission, it sufficiently explained to Nigerians the next day that the delay in uploading the results to the viewing portal was as a result of a technical glitch. And since the results have

“While we hold no brief for the Electoral Commission, it sufficiently explained to Nigerians the next day that the delay in uploading the results to the viewing portal was as a result of a technical glitch. And since the results have since been uploaded eventually, none of the parties have produced their own copies of the result sheets obtained at various polling units that substantially contradicts the results released and announced by the Electoral Commission. Even in their Election Petitions presently before the Court, no such alternative figures have been provided. So, what is all the fuss about?

” is significant to note that some other elections into the Senate and House of Representatives held on the same day, at the same time and with the same personnel. The opposition candidates have since gleefully gone to collect their Certificates of Return for the various seats they won. Why did they not reject the outcome of those elections too and reject their Certificate of Return? This is hypocrisy taken too far.”

The Team thus urged those who felt aggrieved by the outcome of the elections to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the law court to seek redress rather heating up the polity.

“In conclusion, our laws have provided for settled means by which election disputes are resolved. The aggrieved parties have taken advantage of this remedy by filing their cases in Court. We urge them to have faith in our judicial system and desist from spreading false tales about our election across the world,” the Tinubu’s Team said.