By Uche Mbah
Festus Keyamo, the Official spokesperson of the All Progressives congress, APC, has distanced the party from the call by the Buhari Campaign Organization, BCO, urging the International Community to call the Presidential candidate of the main opposition party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to order by prevailing on him to jettison plans to contest the 2019 presidential elections in Court.
This Magazine had reported that the Buhari Media Organization had asked EU, US and UK to intervene in prevailing on Atiku not to go to court. This was one of the series of efforts being made by the Presidency to stop Atiku from going to Court. He has, however, defied them and gone to Court.
But Keyamu, speaking on behalf of APC, said that, for the second time, he is telling the general public that the Buhari Campaign Organisation does not represent the party.
“This is the second time we will be informing the public that the said “Buhari Campaign Organization” does not act at the behest of the APC Presidential campaign council no does it represent Muhammadu buhari Campaign organization in any way”, he said in a release. “As a result, whatever they have released does not represent the position of the APC Presidential campaign council or President Muhammadu Buhari.
“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 an attempt to restrict or discourage the exercise of such rights will 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 subregional observers (who can be seen as neutral by all standards) ALL declared the election to be free, fair and credible. No ego massaging narrative can change that.
We therefore totally dissociate ourselves from the letter purportedly written by one of, perhaps, many support groups of President Muhammadu Buhari. They may have a right to their opinion, but it does not represent our official position”
Meanwhile, in a move feared by the opposition PDP as targeted at sabotaging the court cases, Tanimu Turaki, who is part of the legal team of Atiku Abubakar, was detained when he went to bail the financial controller of part of Atiku’s business, who doubles as his son-in-law, Abdullahi Babalele, who was recently arrested. Opposition believe that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which arrested and detained him, are seeking to extract information from him on who are going to be their principal witnesses “so that they can be hounded”.
