APC Faults PDP’s Allegation Of Attempts To Influence Presidential Election Petition Tribunal

As the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) begins to adjudicate on all petitions filed against the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winners of the disputed 2023 Presidential election, the APC has carpeted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over an allegation that the APC was planning to influence the outcome of the court’s proceedings.

In a press statement issued and signed by the Minister of State For Labour and Productivity, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN) and dated Sunday May 7, 2023, the party described the allegation as “nothing, but just hot air.”

Keyamo stated that the “PDP and its sister company, the LP have been the ones sponsoring surrogates to ‘speak out’ against the outcome of the largely free and fair 2023 Presidential elections when their cases are still pending in Court.

“That is contempt of court and we are within our rights to correct the wrong impressions about the elections being created before Nigerians and the international community. How they see that as ‘attack’ is comical.”

The Minister said further that “these Siamese twins of PDP and LP (we all saw Obi genuflecting before his boss, Atiku, yesterday in Yenagoa) are the ones issuing veiled threats to our judiciary and judicial officers, either by themselves or through their surrogates, be they in religious circles or in civil society or the labour unions.

“So, by pretentiously raising this so-called alarm, they are playing a game of ‘reverse psychology,”

Keyamo explained that in all the States, where the PDP won and the LP also won (both Senate, Governorship and the others), INEC have filed their responses in court, defending those declarations of the winners as correct.

“To the uninformed, they should be alerted that it is the legal duty of INEC to stand by their declarations in court and what they are doing in the case of APC in the Presidential Election Petition is not strange.

“They should have also queried INEC for defending them in those States where they won.

“This panic Press Conference today is a clear attempt by the PDP to play to the gallery. Instead of going to the Court tomorrow to begin to prove its case, it has resorted to cheap and emotional blackmail.

“The allegations are infantile, lacking in substance and devoid of proof. Nigerians should dismiss them with a wave of the hand, please,” the statement read.