BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2019 General Elections, Atiku Abubakar on Saturday said that he has been vindicated by the response of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, to his petition to the Electoral Tribunal.
Atiku also said that he make bold to state that those who have made Nigeria the world headquarters for extreme poverty are the very people whose Nigerianness should be in doubt, and not a man, who worked with President Olusegun Obasanjo to double the per capita income of the nation in less than eight years.
The former Vice President, who stated these explained that he based his case on facts and statistical evidence and challenged both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the APC, to disprove his factual submissions.
He stressed that the fact that the APC chose to base its defence on the ridiculous assertion that he is not a Nigerian, should show to Nigerians the type of characters they have in the APC and its government, whose legitimacy he said runs out on May 29, 2019.
Atiku further said; “The position of the APC is so pedestrian and shows such straw clutching desperation on their part, that I shall not dignify it with an answer. Our lawyers would, of course, do the needful in court.
“But the point I want to draw the attention of Nigerians to is that both the APC and its candidate have by this infantile logic admitted to the fact that they trampled on the will of Nigerians and that their only defence is to attempt an unconstitutional redefinition of the term ‘Nigerian’.
“I am, however, confident in the Nigerian judiciary, as well as in the Nigerian people. I trust that the Tribunal will treat such a claim with the contempt it deserves. We must maintain our fidelity to the rule of law and to our fountain of origin, the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended),” Atiku stressed.
The PDP Presidential candidate explained that he previously told Nigerians that he has verifiable and incontrovertible evidence to show that the last Presidential elections were fraudulent, not credible and did not reflect the will of the Nigerian people, stressing that he has been vindicated.
The statement further said that Atiku Abubakar has served the nation diligently in various capacities, from the civil service, where he rose through merit, to the top of his chosen field, to public service, where, by the grace of God, he was the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Atiku also said that he has committed his assets and talents to developing Nigeria through the provision of tens of thousands of direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs.
