Ex- PDP Legal Adviser Faults Atiku’s Position On Presidential Poll
The immediate past national legal adviser of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Chief Rafiu Balogun has faulted the position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the just concluded Presidential poll.
The eminent lawyer who particularly disagreed with the PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the conduct of poll argued that Atiku’s view was at variance with local and international teams that monitored the poll.
He noted that the barrage of accolades coming from foreign observers and the international communities lent credence to the credibility of the poll.
The former chairman of NBA, Ilorin branch cautioned the opposition leaders against making incendiary comments, urging them to shun any act capable of throwing the nation into chaos.
He recalled that many elections held in the past under PDP administration were not only fraught with irregularities but were upturned by the tribunals.
Balogun,who is also a veteran on Election Petition Matters, therefore urged Atiku to approach the court if he has genuine evidence of electoral infractions .
According to him, “For anyone to say that the last electoral was the worst in Nigeria’s history .That is not correct. I think our leader should be honest whenever they are reacting to issues .We have had elections in the past supervised by the PDP and we know how they all ended .Many of such elections were upturned by the tribunals.
“Even during the era of late President Umaru Yar’adua who was a member of PDP he publicly acknowledged that the election that brought him in was fraught with irregularities .So how can Atiku tell us now that the last Presidential election was the worst in Nigeria?
‘’Except Atiku and his party have other evidences .Let them bring it out and show it to the public .” Balogun said
Although Balogun admitted that Nigeria electoral system required some improvement, he however said that isolated incidences of violence and ballot snatching cannot invalidate the entire process .
“We must give kudos to INEC in spite of the pockets of violence. Because there must be human errors ,that does not mean that we should score INEC low. For me I think they have tried their best to give us this election .The INEC has been transparent enough.’’
