Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate for president in the last elections, called the Economist Intelligence Unit report on the election in Nigeria an embarrassment.
Atiku admonished the unit to respect the Nigerian judiciary and its judges in a statement released by his media adviser, Mr. Paul Ibe, who compared the story to a merchant that the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is currently in power, had bought to confuse Nigerians.
The statement said in part, “What is also obvious in the report is that it is a merchant purchased by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to confuse the country in an uphill task to defend the sham election of February 25, which only retained the ruling party in office.”
“It is disappointing that the EIU would condescend to ballot laundering for the ruling party in the most populous Black country.
“While we wish to express our intention to apply cautious restraint in responding to the EIU on this disgraceful outing, let this be considered as a stern warning to the body to respect Nigeria’s democracy and the institution of our judiciary, and that next time, they should be more circumspect before they jump on any trade by barter jaundiced reports about Nigeria.”
Atiku also accused the ruling party of going cap in hand “begging for legitimacy at all impossible places,” adding that, “a government that goes around to buy anything at sight to award legitimacy unto itself leaves much to the imagination of the people.
“We therefore consider it a breach of due process anything that is being done outside the walls of the court that seeks to make short circuited testimony about the outcome of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal,” he added.
____
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2023 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
