Keyamo: We are anxious to meet Atiku in court

March 5, 2019 5:42 pm

Festus Keyamo, spokesman of All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, says the party is “very anxious” to meet Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in court.

Keyamo was reacting to reports that the APC had written international organisations to prevail on Atiku not to go to court.

In a statement on Tuesday, Keyamo said a letter purportedly written by the Buhari Campaign Organisation to the international organisations does not reflect the campaign’s official position.

“Our attention has been drawn to some news item and posts on social media reporting that we wrote a letter to some international bodies to prevail on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar not to proceed to court to challenge the result of the 2019 presidential election result,” he said.

“Our investigation reveals that a letter to that effect was purportedly written by a certain ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’.

“Our official position is that we believe that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has a constitutional right to seek redress in court and we do not seek in any way to curtail that right.

“In fact, it is the resort to court that is the only democratic way to ventilate his perceived grievance and any attempt to restrict or discourage the exercise of such right would be an invitation to anarchy.

“In addition, we are very anxious to meet Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in court in order to show the world in a conclusive manner the free and fair nature of the comprehensive defeat of Atiku at the polls. An election is not termed ‘rigged’ only by the mere claim of it by the loser. That is what Atiku and the PDP want to ram down our throats.

“Unfortunately for them, international, continental and sub-regional observers (who can be seen as neutral by all standards) all declared it to be free, fair and credible. No ego-massaging narrative can change that.

“We therefore totally disassociate ourselves from the letter purportedly written by one of, perhaps, many support groups of President Muhammed Buhari. They may have a right to their opinion, but it does not represent our official position.”