Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 25 February election, Peter Obi, has said that he would not be cowed into accepting the results as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as God’s wish for the country.
Obi stated this during an interview on Arise News TV on Monday.
While reiterating his utmost respect for traditional rulers and religious leaders, the former Anambra governor disagreed with the narrative being pushed by some of them that the outcome of the recent polls as pronounced by INEC was the will of God for the country.
He said: “I’m very respectful to them and I think that they should be respected for what they represent to society. But I disagree with them. What they are actually preaching is the problem of Nigeria. The problem of Nigeria is accepting wrongdoing and accepting what is unacceptable.
“That is using God’s name in vain. That is not what God is saying. God said do not use my name in vain.
“So, what they are saying is not God’s wish, it is not God’s plan for Nigeria.
“So are they saying that the 133 million Nigerians who are poor is God’s will? Why don’t we accept that 95 million Nigerians living in absolute poverty is God’s will? It is God’s wish that your children are kidnapped? It is God’s wish that we have collapsed Primary Health Care making us the country with the highest infant mortality.
“That’s not what God’s will says. God’s will is that when you do the right thing then in the end it is well.”
Obi said the country has laws guiding the conduct of elections and that it is not the wish of God that they should be violated.
He said: “We have clear laws about the conduct of the election. It’s not God’s wish that we do the wrong thing. We want God’s wish to be truly God’s wish.
“Is it God’s wish that we steal or conduct the wrong election?” he queried.
Despite being previously viewed as a paperweight, Obi and the Labour Party stunned their doubters.
Obi’s Labour Party pulled over six million votes, trailing Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the now President-elect Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC)
Challenging the process
Obi said he is interested in challenging both the process and outcome of the election.
He said INEC, as a public institution, should always submit itself to scrutiny from Nigerians.
“INEC is a public institution and it should be open. Because if you do something and people are not satisfied then you should be able to open up yourself,” Obi said.
“INEC has conducted an election and announced the winner but I am only asking that I have access to the materials that were used to arrive at the result. I am not asking you to change what you said.
“I’m not challenging their declaration. Or rather, I am not challenging who they declared. I’m challenging the process by which they arrived at their declaration.
“And unless we do that, we are not going to stop the rascality we witnessed in that election. The process through which people come into the office is far more fundamental than what they do thereafter.
“There is a process of doing things, of arriving at every destination. A process is important.”
Already, the three leading presidential candidates have all assembled a crack team of legal luminaries to help push their cases in court in the days ahead.
PT