PRESIDENT-ELECT Bola Tinubu has said he is fully prepared to face whatever challenge the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, would launch against him anytime anywhere.
At a press conference on Thursday, Atiku had said last Saturday’s election which Tinubu was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was neither free nor fair.
But in a swift reaction, Tinubu in a statement by the Director Public Affairs and Chief Spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council Festus Keyamo (SAN), said, “Atiku Abubakar’s decision to challenge the outcome of the results is welcome.
“We are prepared to meet his challenge, no matter the nature of the challenge, anywhere and anytime.
“If Atiku Abubakar is not embracing the olive branch extended to him and other losers in the 2023 elections by the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the least he can do is to quietly relocate to Dubai which has become his traditional home base.
“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should be thankful that he even exceeded expectations in the elections by coming 2nd; with all the distractions and fractured party with which he campaigned he must have sensed beforehand that he was headed for a humiliating defeat that should have put him a distant 3rd or 4th in the elections. His performance was therefore the best he could achieve.
“Firstly, Atiku Abubakar breached the zoning principle within his own party by insisting on running for president when that was clearly against the mood of the nation; even after emerging as a candidate, the PDP itself continued to rub insult on the faces of southern leaders in the party by insisting on keeping the position of National Chairman in the North.
“This obviously led to the rebellion of the G-5 governors and their subsequent sabotage of the PDP before the polls and at the polls by campaigning against Atiku’s candidature. His failure to unite his party and manage this post-primaries fall-out was his eventual undoing.”
