The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, have both refused to concede defeat in the February 25 presidential election. They have vowed to recover their mandate in court.
These two candidates rebuffed the President-elect, Bola Tinubu's, offer of conciliation when he asked them to support him in building the nation during his acceptance speech after being declared the winner of the poll on Wednesday.
Atiku and Obi spoke at separate news conferences in Abuja on Thursday.
After Tinubu was declared the winner of the hotly contested polls, Obi broke his silence 24 hours later and emotionally insisted that he won the election and was ready to prove it. He stated that the election was controversial and programmed to deliver predetermined results, and did not meet the requirements to be deemed credible.
He vowed to pursue and recover his mandate, saying, "Let me reassure the good people of Nigeria that we will explore all legal and peaceful options to reclaim our mandate. We won the election and I will prove it to Nigerians."
Obi believed the process through which people come into any position was important, and there was a need for Nigeria to sanitize the process. He said, "We must now require that we do the right thing to generate the right confidence and moral authority to lead.
As you know, the structure of society begins and gradually retrogresses when we act rascally and deliberately in the manipulation of the rule of law and suppression of the will of the people." He had challenged several election results in the past and come out victorious and would approach the court with the firm belief of getting justice.
When asked if he was under pressure, he said no one could put him under pressure for "challenging the rascality."
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