By Ayodele Oni
The Tinubu/Shetima of All Progressive Congress (APC) Campaign Council has said despite having virtually results of last Saturday’s election in its custody, it will wait for official announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC)
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Monday, a spokesman of the Council, Dele Alake condemned reactions of opposition parties which tend to disrupt the process of collation of the election results.
Alake pointed out that “A cursory look at the figures from across the states show that our candidate is well placed for victory. The results have shown that the Labour Party, as we kept saying, is no threat to our victory.
“The PDP, on the other hand, has also failed in its own permutation making its dream of victory go up in smoke. The PDP’s projection of a landslide win in the North has collapsed.
“For example, the PDP’s celebrated victory in Katsina State was only with a difference of less than 7,000 votes. On the other hand, the APC maintains a lead of over 30,000 and 150,000 in nearby Jigawa and Zamfara states, respectively.
“The bad news for PDP, however, is its dismal performance in Kano where the APC is emerging with over 600,000 difference ahead of the PDP. This is a monumental figure which offsets the PDP in the entire North.
“The trend is the same in the South where PDP’s very poor show in Lagos, Oyo, Rivers and other key states spell doom for the party.
“The little gains made by the PDP in South-South and South-East are too little to compensate for the party’s huge deficit suffered in the South-West.
In the North Central, the APC has decimated all parties to a comfortable majority votes in Kwara, Kogi and Niger. Our impressive show in Benue, FCT and Plateau is also pushing PDP into third position in these places.
“Taken together, we are very upbeat as the numbers do not lie. We call on the opposition to stop the macabre dance of a dying horse and embrace defeat honourably. There can still be honour in defeat.
“We once again call for maturity and restraint. Nigerians have spoken through the ballots and the umpire must be allowed to do its work without harassment or blackmail.
“Security agents should stay on alert and deal with individuals and groups who are planning to foment trouble. Election is not a war. This is democracy at play.
“The results trickling in since the close of voting on Saturday have clearly shown the direction Nigerians have chosen to go.
“Right from the polling unit results received from across the country, the signs were clear that the deceit and propaganda of the opposition did not fetch them the expected votes.
“This has expectedly generated anxiety in their camps with many of their leaders making irresponsible incendiary comments.
“We note with utmost concern those inciting comments and call to violence by some spokespersons of the opposition, especially those from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“We are particularly concerned and call on the State Security Services and the Nigeria Police Force to immediately restrain persons such as Dino Melaye, Dele Momodu and a certain Pastor Paul Enenche of Dunamis Church from their clear call to violence.
“Melaye’s tweet threatening violence, Momodu going on the TV to announce a purported winner and Enenche’s hate speech from the pulpit violate every law of the land. They should not go scot-free.
“When failure stared them in the face, rather than accept the outcome with dignity like good democrats would, some sore losers began shopping for ways to cut corners or scuttle the process.
“We have seen many doctored results giving false victory to the Labour Party in places where it performed abysmally poor.”
