THE Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar On Thursday chased away the reconciliation delegation team sent by the President-Elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
A reliable source close to the former vice president told News Point Nigeria in an exclusive chat via phone that, Governors Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi, Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa, Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa and the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu had gone to plead with Atiku to concede defeat in the interest of peace and unity.
But according to the source, Atiku had said he will definitely seek legal redress and told them in clear terms that he doesn’t want to see any of them in his house again – reconciliation or no reconciliation.
“Waziri is still very infuriated, he agreed to the meeting but I think the delegation angered him more. Asiwaju should have sent a different set of people, perhaps neutral set of people that had no hand in the election”, the source said.
“As it is, he is very pissed at some of these governors, and sending the same people to plead with him is clearly not a good idea and moreover, Waziri has made up his mind about going to court and he is going to fight Tinubu’s victory till the end”.
“He has been a series of meetings with stakeholders, party leaders, some international associates and all of these meetings have ended up with one resolution – court”.
“If there is a chance with this reconciliation, I think only Tinubu can make it happen, and he knows Waziri very well and he knows what to do”, the source concluded.
News Point Nigeria reported that, the president-elect had set up committees to meet aggrieved presidential candidates to start the “healing process”.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and a member of the committees disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday by his Chief Press Secretary, Richard Olatunde.
He said a Committee of Elders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) would soon begin to meet with co-contestants of the President-elect in a bid to assuage their loss in the just concluded poll.
He stressed that every aggrieved person will be met for reconciliation.
“The President-elect has set up committees to meet with the gentlemen who contested in the election for us to start the healing process. I belong to one of the committees. We are going to meet them and appeal to them so that we can work together,” the governor stated.
Tinubu polled 8,794,726 and was declared President-Elect on Wednesday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Top opposition parties in the election like Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) have rejected the outcome of the poll, saying the electoral umpire failed to play by the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 on electronic transmission of results. The oppositions have also threatened to head to court to challenge the outcome of the poll.
Atiku Abubakar got 6,984,520 votes, Labour Party (LP)’s Peter Obi scored 6,101,533 and NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso secured 1,496,687 votes.