The Peoples Democratic Party on Monday said it would make known its official position on the outcome of the just concluded Ondo State governorship election in due course.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, disclosed this at a press conference on Monday in Abuja.
Ologbondiyan, however, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take steps to accelerate the amendment of the Electoral Act, which was stalled.
The President did not assent to the amended Electoral Act of the National Assembly in 2019.
The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, as the winner of the governorship election held on Saturday in Ondo State.
Akeredolu got 292,830 votes to defeat Eyitayo Jegede of PDP, who got 195,791 votes, while Ajayi Agboola of Zenith Labour Party got 69,127 votes.
Ologbondiyan, however, said the attention of the PDP had been drawn to a press conference by the Chairman, National Caretaker Committee of the APC, Gov. Mai Mala Buni.
He said that Buni had begged the PDP to congratulate the APC over the outcome of the Ondo State governorship election.
He described the call as an attempt by the governor to use PDP to endorse the election.
“The PDP is too structured as a party to be used by anybody under any guise in that regard,” Ologbondiyan said.
Buni had earlier in a press conference advised the PDP to emulate the APC, which felicitated with it in its victory in the Edo State election, in congratulating Akeredolu.
Buni said: “It is said, one good turn deserves another, and just like we congratulated PDP in the Edo election, we look forward to seeing PDP and the other political parties extend similar gesture to us in the spirit of good sportsmanship.
“By so doing, we will make elections in Nigeria healthier and attractive, rather than making elections a do or die affair.”
But Ologbondiyan said: “The attention of the Peoples Democratic Party has been drawn to a press conference by the chairman of the contentious National Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor Mai Mala Buni, wherein he begged the PDP to congratulate the APC over the outcome of the October 10, Ondo governorship election.
“It is indeed ludicrous and completely absurd that Governor Buni is begging for endorsement of the election in spite of his awareness that the internal mechanism that produced his party’s candidate, as presided over by him, was faulty.
“Nigerians already know that the emergence of Governor Mai Buni in the national leadership of his party is a subject of litigation and as such his nomination of any candidate for the election is seen, even among his party members, as a nullity until the court says otherwise.
“It will therefore be pathetic for Governor Mai Buni to attempt to use the PDP to build something on the nothingness of his position in his party. The PDP is too structured as a party to be used by anybody, under any guise, in that regard.
“Perhaps, Governor Buni is not aware that information available in the public space and to the PDP showed that a very top-level management official of the NNPC, through a northwest governor elected on the platform of the APC, diverted huge amounts of money, in dollar, from our nation oil resources to fund vote buying in the Ondo election.
“Instead of begging the PDP for congratulatory message, Governor Buni should rather speak to this disturbing stealing of oil money to fund his party’s vote buying at the expense of Nigerians who are bearing the brunt of increase in the pump price of fuel and corruption in the oil sector under the APC.
“While our party will, in due course, make its official position on the outcome of the Ondo election known, the PDP urges President Muhammodu Buhari to take steps that will accelerate the amendment of the Electoral Act, which was stalled following his failure to sign the amended Act of the National Assembly in 2019.”
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