From Leon Usigbe, Abuja
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and its vice presidential candidate, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, will Monday lead a protest of party stakeholders to the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.
The protest is over the conduct of the presidential election and the declaration of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as winner by the electoral umpire.
Recall that at the end of collation of results last week, INEC had declared the former Lagos State governor winner with a total votes of 8,794,726 followed by the candidates of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, with 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.
Both the PDP and the LP candidates have since rejected the outcome of the election on the grounds that the figures were manipulated in favour of the ruling party candidate.
They blame the electoral body for the poor handling of the exercise and have both signaled their intention to challenge the results in court.
The main opposition party has now decided to also physically voice its objection to the result by marching on INEC headquarters in Maitama, Abuja.
The party has already started mobilizing key stakeholders for the march billed to take off from its alternate secretariat, Legacy House, Maitama at 10am.
An invitation letter issued by the Director of Administration of the PDP Presidential Organization, listed party leaders expected at the protest to include Ayu, Okowa; Chairman of the PDP PCO and Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, and the Director General of the organization and Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal.
Others are Governors Duoye Diri (Bayelsa), Godwin Obaseki (Edo), Ahmadu Fintiri (Adamawa), Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Darius Ishaku (Taraba), and Ademola Adeleke (Osun).
Also invited are former Senate Presidents, Senator David Mark and Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, all members of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), PDP members in the National Assembly, members of it’d National Working Committee (NWC), People Living With Disabilities, campaign council members, among others.
Spokesperson of the Atiku/Okowa Campaign Committee and Director, Public Affairs, Senator Dino Melaye, confirmed the protest march to the Nigerian Tribune.
Pressed to give the objective of the exercise, he said: “Protest is protest. When you come tomorrow, you will hear what we will tell them.”
