The Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded presidential elections, Mr. Peter Obi, on Monday asked those discouraging the party from heading to court to perish the idea.
He said the party was not going to court to challenge the All Progressives Congress (APC) but the process that brought them to power.
Obi, who spoke with newsmen in Onitsha, said dissuading the party from contesting the outcome of the poll was allowing impunity to go unchallenged.
He accused the APC of gross manipulation of the electoral process, describing the act as worse than corruption.
Obi said he aligned fully with PDP as a party, the Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and well-meaning Nigerians in condemning the exercise.
He expressed confidence that the party would reclaim its mandate at the court.
He said: “There is nothing to reconcile because we are not quarreling with them.
“We are quarrelling with the process that declared them winners.
“Every competition has its own rules. You can’t go into a football competition and score from the offside and said it should be accepted.
“This is even worse than scoring from offside. They went and threw in the ball into the goal post when nobody was there.
“We can’t continue with election rigging, incompetence and nepotism which are worse than corruption in any society.”
Obi thanked Nigerians for their support for the party, especially the youth and women, some of who he said were exercising their voting rights for the first time.
“I was touched by the eagerness with which Nigerians came out to fulfill their civic duties of voting in the over 119,000 polling booths scattered all over Nigeria.
“I also condole the families of those that lost their lives and those that sustained various degrees of injuries during the election,” he added.
He appealed to them not to allow their spirit become dampened towards the performance of their civic duties in future.
According to Obi: “The election was anything but a transparent, free and fair election, which certainly fell far below the standard established by the 2015 presidential election.
He claimed it was characterised by deliberate voters’ suppression and intimidation throughout the South-East and South-South, actions he described as the highest form of corruption.
Obi lamented that the two zones under reference witnessed different sets of rule.
He continued: “While some zones voted strictly using the card readers, other zones, as part of the manipulation orchestrated by the ruling party, APC were allowed to vote without card readers contrary to the guidelines INEC issued before the election.
“As law abiding citizens, the PDP as a party, its Presidential candidate and himself, had decided to go to court because of their belief in the rule of law.
“Though elections give citizens a means to hold their leaders accountable by voting incumbents out of office or promising to hold to account those leaders successfully elected, the process is more important than the outcome as the rule of law must always prevail.
“Thus, the consequences of Nigeria without rule of law will be unimaginable chaos and tyranny.”
