Atiku tells APC, begging US president to back Tinubu is a desperate act

Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council’s (APC PCC) efforts to get endorsements for President-elect Bola Tinubu, such as asking US President Joe Biden to call and congratulate him, were a sign of desperation.

In a statement released by Atiku’s Special Assistant for Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Thursday, the former Vice President said that the APC PCC Director of New Media, Femi Fani-Kayode, had taken to Twitter to say that even though the US State Department had congratulated Tinubu, Biden needed to add his voice because the US and Nigeria had a long-standing relationship.

The statement mentioned what Fani-Kayode had said: “Yes, both the US State Department and the US Ambassador to Nigeria congratulated Asiwaju. We will always be grateful for this, and it shows how much we respect you. But Joe Biden needs to pick up the phone and make his voice heard. We are a big country, and we shouldn’t get less.”

But Atiku said that Fani-tweets Kayode’s showed that he was desperate.

He said that what the APC PCC director did was terrible, and he asked Tinubu and his team to stop forcing other countries to recognize the “sham election” that INEC held.

The PDP candidate added, “After winning the worst and most rigged election in Nigerian history, Tinubu and his kind are now begging the West to recognize Tinubu. This is the absolute last resort.

“It reminds me of the days of maximum ruler Sani Abacha, when he tried to make friends with the West after refusing to recognize MKO Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election and taking power over a people who didn’t want him.

“Even the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, said that the election in Nigeria fell short of what Nigerians had hoped for. Observers from the EU and a number of reputable media outlets in the country and around the world have all questioned the legitimacy of this election. But Tinubu and people like him want it to be approved? What a joke!”

Atiku also pointed out that an analysis by one of Chatham House’s fellows said that the February 25 presidential election showed that the Independent National Electoral Commission didn’t learn any new lessons. Chatham House is an independent policy institute based in London.

He remembered that the London-based Think Tank had said that the election official did not follow the rules it had set up before the vote, especially the one about uploading results in real time.

(TNT)