Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says Nigerian youth must dedicate themselves to confronting the country’s electoral challenges as a way of safeguarding their future.
NAN reports that the former vice-president spoke in Abuja on Friday at the inauguration of a support group, the Nigerian Youths for Atiku (NYFA).
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023 said the youth must move to enshrine more electoral reforms or “you have no future”.
Abubakar said Nigerian youth should pressurise the national assembly to amend the electoral law to allow for electronic collation of poll results.
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“I remember the last Turkish presidential elections. I was sitting and watching the results coming electronically,” he said.
“By the Turkish constitution, you must score 50 percent to be elected as a president.
“The current president scored 49.5 percent. There was no manual collation, but they said he didn’t score 50 percent.
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“We all know that in our arithmetic or mathematics we say if you get 49.5 you round it up to 50. Not so?
“That was what we were taught in school. They didn’t round it up to 50. Instead, they ordered another round of elections.
“The guy who came third with about 4 percent now endorsed the first candidate, and when the results were counted, it came out exactly 49.5 plus 4 percent, and Erdogan was declared the winner.
“No INEC chairman, commissioners writing the result. There was absolutely nothing like manual collation. So, we really have a long way to go.
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“There are challenges, but you must dedicate yourselves to confronting those challenges. If you don’t dedicate yourself to confronting those challenges, you have no future.”
