Babachir Lawal, a senior member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigeria and a former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), asserts that Peter Obi, a candidate for the Labour Party (LP), won the contested 2023 presidential election rather than President Bola Tinubu, who was declared the victor by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In Abuja, Lawal, a close ally of Tinubu’s who served in the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, addressed the current political crisis in the nation of West Africa. Lawal insisted that “available factual data” compiled from numerous independent sources showed that Obi received the majority of votes, Atiku came in second, and Tinubu finished a distant third in terms of the total number of votes cast.
“I have resisted the temptation to engage in the contemporary political discourse since the February 2023 election faux pas,” Lawal said.
“I did this for two reasons; the first being that as an active player in the drama, I needed time to analyze and digest the data that led to the outcome(s) so I could arrive at an informed decision; the second, being that the rainy season had just set in and it was necessary that I focused my attention on my farms which are the mainstay of my livelihood.
“The current topical issues for political discourse and inquiry are whether or not Bola Tinubu won the presidential election and/or that he was apriori, qualified to participate in the election given his murky bio data as is now being publicly unveiled daily in an avalanche.
“My answer to the first inquiry is that regardless of whatever INEC or Appeal Court said or did, Bola did not win the election.
“Right from the start of the campaigns, Bola knew he was not going to win the election in a free and fair contest so he decided to go by all means.
“Available factual data as aggregated from several independent sources indicate that Obi got the majority votes while Atiku came second. Bola came a distant third in the number of votes scored.
“My answer to the second inquiry is that given the now unfolding deluge of uncomplimentary information about who or what he actually is, ordinarily, sound ethics and morality should have convinced him to voluntarily excuse himself from participation in the election.
“But this, notwithstanding, I believe he still has time and opportunity to save himself this public humiliation and embarrassment to his person, both locally and internationally by resigning so that he can give more attention to his health.
“After all, no one knows about the truism of these severely embarrassing and humiliating exposures about his person than the man himself.
“Leadership is all about integrity; sound pedigree, trustworthiness and the ability to unite and instil hope and confidence in the people one seeks to lead. In these qualities, most Nigerians are in total agreement that Bola has them in very very short supply indeed,” the ex-SGF opined.
