APC, LP, PDP all cheated, says SDP presidential candidate

Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), says all major political parties cheated in the last election.

On February 25, over 24 million Nigerians went to the poll to elect the 16th president of the country.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday, announced Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner after polling 8,794,726 votes.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was next with 6,101,533 votes.

The commission has issued a certificate of return to Tinubu as the president-elect.

Abubakar and Obi said they would challenge the result in court.

Speaking on the electoral process on Friday, Adebayo said “every political party complaining now had a budget for influencing INEC in their so-called logistics budget”.

The SDP candidate said the process was “flawed and dishonest”, insisting that the three major parties engaged in vote buying.

“Anyone who wants to challenge the election can challenge the election. Everything is wrong with the election. It is not only what happened on that day of collation that was wrong with the election. People cheated, people bought votes, and people confiscated the INEC process. Many of the people who are complaining now cheated in many places,” he said.

“In the polling unit where I voted, Labour cheated, PDP cheated, and APC cheated more than the rest of them. Vote buying is cheating. APC used recharge cards to cheat, Labour brought dollar notes and PDP was giving people money, why will I not complain?

“Atiku Abubakar cheated me of my votes in Katsina and Adamawa. He was buying votes with N200. What I’m saying is that the process is flawed, it is not an honest process. Every political party complaining now had a budget for influencing INEC in their so-called logistics budget.

“What I decided to do is that I won’t be part of the constitutional crisis, and you won’t have an SDP person coming out to make noise. I don’t have a problem with anyone going to court.”