By Akeem Busari
The apex leadership of all Yoruba indigenous groups, Yoruba Council Worldwide (Igbimo Apapo Yoruba Lagbaye) is extremely concerned to caution Chief Olusegun Obasanjo over his unfounded accusations and false alarm raised against INEC officials in the build up to the compilation of the various State’s tabulated, witnessed and sealed 2023 Presidential results.
In a worldpress conference held Tuesday, February 28, 2023, at the Airport Hotel Ikeja, Lagos, the President of Yoruba Council Worldwide, Aare Oba Oladotun Hassan, described the outbursts of Chief Obasanjo as selfish, egocentric and a deliberate attempt to viciously scuttle the ongoing smooth electoral process through his tainted partisan efforts to create a false impression against the use of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System(BVAS), to have been compromised, and that result of election being announced are fraudulent without no evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt of his evil premeditated conviction to clandestiny and maliciously cause monumental havoc.
The text of the press briefing read, “Chief Olusegun Obasanjo being a former President of Nigeria under whose watch as President midwifed an election plagued with duress, mass killings and unprecedented electoral malpractices, whereas he propounded the “do or die” ideology into our electoral system.
“His undemocratic stance on many fronts has further reduced his level of opinion to a mere beer parlor argument without no substance to hold and bind the nation together as a true Democrat and Respected elderstateman.
“Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is under intensed frustration and desperation to foist his endorsed political son; Peter Obi of the Labour Party on all Nigerians without due respect to our franchise will, having sacrificed our efforts to vote for our choices on the 25th February, 2023.
“We respect everyone’s choices without any iota of intimidation and violence, in as much as, we respect the ibos and other ethnic regions, hence we expect equal reciprocity, consequently we wouldn’t want Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to drive his personal vendetta agenda under ethnic wedged venom of hatred and divide and rule syndrome to cause ethnic conflict that will inevitably nosedive into civil unrest as earlier postulated by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in his letter dated 27th February, 2023.
The text read further, “We are peaceful people in Yoruba land and are the most accommodating race, hence we implore President Muhammadu Buhari, alongside all Nigerians to ignore Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s ill-motivated predictions. While standing with INEC to salvage and safeguard the ongoing process to conclusion and fruition predicated on free, fair and credible elections, because any attempt to allow any unilateral cancellation by the Chairman of INEC as proposed by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and co-accomplices, is a recipe for anarchy and full implosion that will take many years to repair.
“For it is only the Election Tribunal Court that can address many of the issues raised on the uploading of the results from the Polling units to the INEC Portals if truly, those allegations raised are true, but for necessity and exigency of the preceding circumstances INEC needed to apply all lawful means to keep the process unimpeded despite the huge negativity caused by disgruntled politicians and desperate citizens whose intentions are laced with ethnic bigotry rather than building one and a new Nigeria.
“Vote counting and tallying processes, were carried out in a transparent, simple and professional manner, in the presence of party agents, observers, and security agents in the daytime in some polling units and with lamps in others, where voting was delayed due to human logistical problems.
“Based on testimony from the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Touray, who commended INEC rather than chastised the Commission. the Ecowas Chief Observer, urged INEC to increase the frequency of communication on developments regarding the electoral process on uploading result to the portal, but it is most important to first diligently collate results at the RAC centers before LGA, to the State levels before onward transmission to the final National Collation Center in Abuja, and to the general public to discourage misinformation through social media.
“Hence, all presidential candidates are hereby mandated to continuously maintain their peace accord demands, in line with the National Peace Committee’s noble vision, objectives and mandates, for no one’s blood is worth the election.
“We call on all law enforcement agency to be on red alert to immediately arrest anyone instigating nor inciting violence either by utterance or deeds.”
Conclusively, it added, “We hereby reiterate our confidence in INEC to continue the result computation process in line the dictates of the Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and whoever wins must be declared immediately and given certificate of return.”
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