By Kayode Ajulo
When political participation is not done with some measure of fairness, it suffers any claim to patriotism. And this is exactly what the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apparently suffers with regard to the just concluded presidential election.
The opposition party has been relentless in its foul bid to discredit the processes of election which conferred victory on President Muhammadu Buhari, and in so doing, sweeping up porous pontifications about the results of the Northern states where President Buhari enjoyed exceeding votes.
The big hypocrisy on the part of PDP is accepting that elections were flawless in states where it enjoyed swelling votes - particularly in the South East and South South regions - and calling corrupt the process that gave the ruling party an edge in some states within the Northern enclave.
A heap of evidence supports the validity of election results as collated and announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Besides, the collation of All Progressives Congress (APC) own situation room that tallies with INEC figures lends credence to the result, and independence sources also say Buhari's victory is genuine.
It is instructive to note that various international communities including European Union (EU), United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Commonwealth, African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) objectively observed/participated before, during and after the elections to ensure that the whole electoral processes are free, fair, credible and peaceful. And their comments after the presidential and National Assembly elections have attested to the glaring fact that the elections were fair and credible.
Of particular consequence is a release by the British Minister of State for Africa which lends authentication to the INEC result.
The Minister of the United Kingdom Government has confirmed that the results of the presidential election as released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were authentic.
British Minister, Harriet Baldwin, said the results were consistent with the results obtained through the civil society Parallel Vote Tabulation process, saying, "Along with our international partners, the UK believes the Nigerian people can have confidence in the result."
The opposition has also called for the probing into the election processes, which we believe is not out of place. However, probing must be wholesale and thorough. Probing must also involve the PDP with regard to the sources of its election finances and allied transactions.
We have it on good authority that a bulk of the finances of the PDP was drawn from the stolen monies from our commonwealth– particularly of interest is the information that some of those who ran out of Nigeria were loitering in the neighbouring countries during the just concluded presidential election.
This corrupt means of election funding must be captured in the imminent probing efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and sister agencies.
We shall not hesitate to forward our petitions to these bodies to ensure a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the cooked books of the PDP to expose the sources of funding of their clandestinely shrouded flamboyant campaign.
While these processes are unfolding in the interest of the country that is fast progressing under President Buhari, all hands must be on deck to check excesses and democratic oversteps of the actors in PDP, which include its persistent plans to rubbish the majority of votes which Nigerians freely and fairly gave to President Buhari.
Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Forward With Buhari!
- Kayode Ajulo (PhD) is the Secretary, Forward With Buhari
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