TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign council says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should not bother about conducting a run-off as Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate will win at the first ballot.

Earlier, Festus Okoye, INEC commissioner for information, announced that the commission will prepare towards conducting a run-off.

A run-off is conducted when there is no clear winner for the first election — this can happen when the candidate who has the highest votes fails to meet the conditional requirements on vote spread across states.

But, Kola Ologbondiyan, spokesperson of the PDP campaign council, in a statement on Saturday said INEC should instead, direct its resources towards ensuring the conduct of free and credible elections.

“Our campaign counsels INEC not to listen to diversionary narratives by apologists of the deflated All Progressives Congress (APC) who are ostensibly seeking ways to derail the election, having realised that their party has been rejected,” the statement reads.

“The campaign urges INEC to deploy its resources towards conducting a free, fair, transparent and credible election that will be generally accepted by majority of Nigerians.

“Our campaign is confident that by every indices and data available, our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will win the presidential election of February 25, 20,23 at the first run.

“The APC has seen defeat ahead as Nigerians are quickly reaching a consensus on the fact that the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is not electable.”

The campaign council urged Nigerians to protect their votes and elect candidates of their choice.

In 2019, Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate lost his presidential bid to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Meanwhile, the presidential and national assembly elections have been scheduled to hold on February 25, 2023, while the election for governorship and state houses of assembly will take place on March 11, 2023.