LAGOS/Nigeria: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain, Chief Sunny Onuesoke has condemned the hasty congratulation of President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of 2019 Presidential election by United Kingdom, United States and other countries describing their action as too hasty.
Speaking to group of journalist at Muritala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos on his way to Asaba, Delta State, Onuesoke said it is shocking to the core the way foreign countries accept the result despite reports of widespread violence, voter suppression, vote-buying, ballot boxes snatching and highly visible underage voting in the North.
Onuesoke stated that he expected the people who wrote the foreign observer reports to do their jobs by morally uncompromising and point out many of the complaints they received which were easy to prove or worthy of further investigation but the reverse was the case.
“But they chose to betray the Nigerians who trusted them to be objective and protective umpires. And they wound up giving the world the completely false impression that President Muhammadu Buhari won fair and square.
“For example, report from one of the rural communities revealed that soldiers disenfranchised 16,000 people by confiscating election materials in four wards. Meanwhile, on Bonny Island, no voting at all took place last Saturday because a local APC grandee, fearing defeat, intimidated the populace with help from security personnel.
“What about Lagos incidents of destroying ballot papers in opposition base. Or do we talk of the killings in Rivers State and disfranchising of voters by military men in Southern states,” he queried.
Onuesoke said it is amazing that foreigners chose to so cruelly abandon Buhari’s main rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his millions of supporters, adding that to be fair, some foreign observers mean well and are not happy about the sanitised reports that were pushed out by their superior, while other observers simply saw nothing wrong in it.
“Some people said the foreigners just want to safeguard their economic interests by avoiding crisis, and that they have decided that the safest way forward is to stick with a status quo that is far from ideal but stable compared to the chaos that may descend if Buhari’s “victory” is seriously challenged,” he revealed.
He recalled that Buhari said that ballot box snatchers would pay with their lives, adding that but it is often ordinary, law-abiding people who pay with their lives.
