Pro-Tinubu supporters take protest to Villa

•Warn Atiku, Obi against intimidating Judiciary, INEC •Tinubu supporters hired crowd — LP

GROUP of pro-Tinubu protesters, under the aegis of The Natives, has warned the presidential candidates of  Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  Atiku Abubakar, and Labour Party LP, Mr Peter Obi, against intimidating judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, over grievances regarding the outcome of the presidential election.

The protest came on a day chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, assured the legal team of Labour Party that the commission would release to the party materials needed to prosecute the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, as ordered by the court.

The Natives was reacting to protests against the outcome of the presidential election which saw Bola Tinubu of All Progressives Congress, APC, emerge as President-elect.

Both candidates of the PDP and the LP have rejected the results, accusing INEC of manipulation, even as protests were taken to INEC headquarters.

But protesting what they tagged intimidation of INEC and the Judiciary during a "Thank You Walk" to the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday, The Natives in their numbers, led by its Supreme Leader, Smart Edwards, said supporters of APC and Tinubu would no longer take lightly the intimidation by supporters of Peter Obi (Obidients) and supporters of the Atiku Abubakar (Atikulators).

The rally which had representatives of National Association of the Nigeria Students, NANS, and other youths groups in attendance, temporarily paralyzed movement of vehicles from the federal secretariat to the Presidential Villa yesterday.

Edwards, who described PDP as a national rigging organization, said:  "The Obidients should understand that Asiwaju is a political juggernaut and election strategist. They were all part of the plan because the candidature of Peter Obi was an asset to the APC. 

''The Obidients made Tinubu's victory easy, they all made it possible. Ordinarily, it should have been Obi or Tinubu. Tinubu was not in the best position to steal the election but he planned well and worked vigorously for the victory.

"We also have a message for the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Your Excellency, it is your time to test the courts and not to intimidate the courts. It is your time to retreat and retire, or reset and re-contest again if your party is not tired of you.

"Your inability to be consistent in a party like Bola Ahmed Tinubu, shows it is all about you alone. No sir, the Supreme Court is not about you, the Appeal Court is not about you, even the Tribunal is not about you, it is about the rule of law.

"So, today (yesterday), we are putting the nation on notice that no one will be allowed to intimidate the Nigerian Judiciary any longer, we will not entertain it. These judges and the judiciary are the most crucial part of the hope that democracy holds.

"We want to say categorically that Bola Ahmed Tinubu of APC won the election. The Lagos State he lost should have been a taboo but the democrat in him publicly accepted the outcome without calling for anybody's head."

While commending INEC for a good job, the protesters said no election all over the world was devoid of hitches.

"INEC must be allowed to do its work without molestation. Nobody is talking about the recorded voices of the PDP players which went viral recently where they were scheming to bribe or corner  INEC officials,'' he said.

Tinubu supporters hired crowd – LP

Reacting to the allegations of Tinubu’s supporters, who took their protest to Aso Villa, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Debo Ologunagba, said, “no comment”, adding that he does not react to protest by people he doesn’t know.

However, spokesman of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Dr Yunusa Tanko, said those who protested at the Villa were a hired crowd who had mortgaged their future.

According to him, Tinubu’s supporters were the ones intimidating INEC and the Judiciary because the LP had been following the rule of law in its activities.

His words: “Those ones are hired crowd. They are the ones intimidating the INEC and the Judiciary. They are the ones attacking and harassing our people. We are following the rule of law and due process to reclaim our mandate. We have not done anything against the law."

Culled from Vanguard