Oshiomhole: Atiku not destined to be president

The National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said yesterday that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was never destined to be the president of Nigeria.

Oshiomhole, who reacted to Atiku’s press conference on the outcome of last Saturday’s presidential election, said his submission was obvious from the Waziri Adamawa’s desperation to become president.

He said the PDP presidential candidate’s frequent movement from one political party to another after suffering defeats did not make him a personality to be elected president.

“Was he going to rule Nigeria against our wish? Citizens must hold their leaders accountable to their policy choices,” Oshiomhole said.

“When he said even if he would die, he would sell NNPC, many people believed that he has collected deposit. It borders on arrogance that our future is tied on his presidency.

“Atiku is destined never to be president of Nigeria. Leadership is about character. Atiku’s desperation is so obvious, so desperate that in 2003 he challenged his own boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to do a second term,” he said.

The former labour leader, who described Atiku as an unstable personality and a rolling stone whose interest was about himself, urged the PDP presidential candidate to learn from his experience in 2007 when he headed to court instead of resorting to violence to fight injustice meted against him at the poll.

He said since the PDP and their candidate (Atiku) reluctantly signed the peace accord, he had made up his mind that the election would only be free and fair if he won.

“We hope and we are looking forward to meet Atiku in court. The facts will be laid bare there,” Oshiomhole said.

Oshiomhole, who used the results of presidential elections from 1999 to 2019 and the performance of President Buhari since 2003 to pick holes in Atiku’s argument of statistical impossibilities over his performance in the South South and the South East, said the 99.9 per cent voting pattern of the PDP in the two zones were truncated after the introduction of smart card readers.

He suspected calculated attempts to multiply voter population with geometric increase in the number of voters without any corresponding rise in the population of Nigerians.

Oshiomhole, who said the APC was rigged out in South South region of the country, especially Akwa-Ibom State during collation, promised to challenge results which came from the region as several petitions had been sent to INEC.

“Rather than Atiku saying that rigging has come to stay, and why the numbers don’t add up in the absence of massive rigging, I just think that he needs to be reminded that the essence of the collective efforts that have been made, and all those whom I can describe as genuine friends of Nigeria have been trying to improve on the electoral process,” the APC national chairman said.