The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, Peter Obi, has said that he is challenging the process leading to the declaration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, as the winner of the election and not the declaration itself.
Obi said this during his appearance on Arise TV Monday morning.
The former Anambra State governor insisted that to be referred to as “His Excellency”, the process leading to the emergence of such a fellow has to be “excellent”.
Obi called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to be transparent and allow itself to be scrutinised by the public since it is a public institution run by taxpayers’ money.
He asked the electoral body to allow him access to materials used during the election as granted by the court, saying he was not interested in challenging who was declared as winner of the poll, but the process that led to the declaration.
Obi said,
“I’m not challenging who they declared,” Obi stated, “I’m not challenging whatever…the outcome, I’m challenging the process (through) which they arrived at their declaration.”
“And unless we do that, we’re not going to stop the rascality we witnessed in that election,” he added.
“The process through which people come into office is for me…far more fundamental than what they do thereafter. There is a process of doing things. There is a process of arriving at any destination. Like I said in my press conference, if you’re going to answer ‘His Excellency’, the process of coming to that position must be excellent. If you’re going to be a Bishop, there’s a process of being a Bishop.”
INEC’s chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, had in the early hours of Wednesday, March 1, declared APC’s Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election to beat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and LP’s Obi who came second and third respectively in the keenly contested poll.