A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, has urged the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in last Saturday\u2019s election, Atiku Abubakar, not to approach the court because of his loss.<\/p>\n
Atiku lost the presidential election to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in a keenly fought contest.<\/p>\n
Buhari had polled 15,191,847 votes, ahead of Atiku\u2019s 11,262,978, to be declared the winner of the election by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.<\/p>\n
However, Atiku rejected the presidential election outcome on Wednesday, saying he would challenge it in court.<\/p>\n
He said the election was not free or fair, and that it was full of many irregularities.<\/p>\n
But in a piece titled, \u20182019 Presidential Election: Ethnic Consideration vs Governance Consideration,\u2019 written by Agbakoba on Wednesday, the legal practitioner advised Atiku against approaching the court, but to accept the outcome in faith.<\/p>\n
Agbakoba said, \u201cI understand the PDP is aggrieved at the outcome of the election and alleged massive irregularities. I urge former Vice President Atiku Abubakar not to approach the Election Petition Tribunal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might have (been) moved backwards by his loss, but he should not lose sight of the legacy and greatness that lie in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SAN described Atiku as being in a position to take up the mantle of a statesman and build a \u2018new Nigeria movement\u2019 from the array of small parties, third force actors, change actors and millions who were desperate for a strong and united Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also a lot of work to be done in both political and electoral reforms. I request former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to step into the shoes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Agbakoba however said he did not mean that the election was devoid of irregularities.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cI can see how tempting it is to take the option of the Election Petition Tribunal. But that, in my view, is not the right decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to a new Nigeria, strong and united; a new Nigeria that will not vote on the basis of ethnic and primordial sentiments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SAN noted that the voting pattern of last Saturday\u2019s presidential election showed that ethnicity played a significant role result.<\/p>\n
He said both the APC and the PDP benefited from \u201cprimordial voting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe excepted zone is the South-West, where voting occurred on the basis of issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe significance and consequence of the 2019 presidential election are huge unless we are able to reverse it.<\/p>\n
\u201c2023 will follow the pattern of 2019 unless we do something about it,\u201d Agbakoba said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, has urged the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in last Saturday\u2019s election, Atiku Abubakar, not to approach the court because of his loss. Atiku lost the presidential election to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in a keenly fought contest. Buhari had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1280,382,941],"class_list":["post-3273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-atiku-abubakar","tag-muhammadu-buhari","tag-olisa-agbakoba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3275,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions\/3275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}