Presidential Election: Atiku Went to Court to Expose Flaws in 2019 Polls

The Anambra State Publicity Secretary of the Atiku/Obi residential Campaign Council, Okoli Akirika, has said the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23 poll, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, owes Nigerians and generation unborn the duty of challenging the election to set the record straight.

For questioning the 2019 election results in court, Akirika said Atiku has taken the best decision as failure to do so may entrench in Nigeria electoral process a culture of "mindless rigging and election result falsification."

Speaking to journalists in Awka, the state capital, on Sunday, Akirika said: "Atiku and PDP owe posterity a historic duty to make sure the result of the election is questioned, if not for any other reason, for keeping the record straight and for checkmating impunity in accordance with due process.

"The issue of allowing a sleeping dog lie does not arise in this circumstance. What is playing out today is happening because former President Goodluck Jonathan did not challenge the 2015 election.

"If Jonathan had challenged that election, I entertain no modicum of doubt that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could not have displayed the kind of obnoxious rascality it exhibited in the 2019 elections."

He said posterity would not have forgiven Atiku and PDP if they had listened to some people who had advised against going to court after the election.

"The impunity perpetrated in the February presidential election was because President Jonathan did not challenge the outcome of the 2015 presidential election in court.

"If Jonathan had challenged the poll, the INEC would have taken some measures that would have minimised the irregularities and impunity that characterised the 2019 general election," he stated.

Akirika added that: "So Atiku and PDP owe the present generation of Nigerians and posterity a duty to checkmate this impunity because if they don't do that, in future elections, some people will boldly generate alleged figures of election and Nigerians will keep saying allow the sleeping dog lie.

"For how long shall this dog be allowed to sleep if doing so is causing dissatisfaction; if it's getting to the level where societal expectations are being jeopardised? That dog can't be allowed to sleep.