Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has addressed issues bordering on the authenticity of his citizenship.
As you may know, Atiku is challenging the results of the polls which saw President Muhammadu Buhari re-elected for second term.
The former Vice President claims that from the data in INEC’s server, he actually polled a total of 18,356,732 votes defeating President Muhammadu Buhari who polled only 16,741,430 votes.
A claim which he has presented to the 2019 presidential election tribunal, and is currently been dealt with.
But, the All Progressive Congress, APC, has asked the tribunal to dismiss PDP’s petition for lacking merit, stating that Section 131(a) of the Constitution stipulates that a person must be a citizen of Nigeria by birth to be qualified to contest for the office of the President, implying that Atiku is not a Nigerian Citizen.
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Reacting to the claim by the All Progressive Congress, Atiku Abuakar on Saturday 13, April 2019, held a nationwide broadcast to Nigerians.
Read the full text of the broadcast below:
“Dear citizens of our beloved country, Nigeria, His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, told us previously that he has verifiable and incontrovertible evidence to show that the last Presidential elections were fraudulent, not credible and did not reflect the will of the Nigerian people, and he has been vindicated by the response of the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, to his petition to the Electoral Tribunal hearing the petition he filed.
“The former Vice President based his case on facts and statistical evidence and challenged both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the APC, to disprove his factual submissions.
“The fact that the APC chose to base its defence on the ridiculous assertion that the Waziri Adamawa is not a Nigerian should show to Nigerians the type of characters we have in the APC and its government, whose legitimacy runs out on May 29, 2019.
“The position of the APC is so pedestrian and shows such straw clutching desperation on their part, that I shall not dignify it with an answer.
Our lawyers would, of course, do the needful in court. But the point I want to draw the attention of Nigerians to is that both the APC and its candidate have by this infantile logic admitted to the fact that they trampled on the will of Nigerians and that their only defence is to attempt an unconstitutional redefinition of the term ‘Nigerian’.
“I am, however, confident in the Nigerian judiciary, as well as in the Nigerian people. I trust that the Tribunal will treat such a claim with the contempt it deserves. We must maintain our fidelity to the rule of law and to our fountain of origin, the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended).
“Atiku Abubakar has served our nation diligently in various capacities, form the civil service, where he rose through merit, to the top of his chosen field, to public service, where, by the grace of God, he was the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Moreover, he has committed his assets and talents to developing our nation through the provision of tens of thousands of direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs.”
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Atiku added that those who have made Nigeria the world headquarters for extreme poverty, are the very people whose Nigerians should be in doubt “and not a man who worked with President Olusegun Obasanjo to double the per capita Income of our nation in less than eight years.”
