ELECTION: Atiku presents 6-points demand to president, Buhari

The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the February 23 election, Atiku Abubakar has presented a six-point demand to the Federal Government.

He presented the demands through the former Head of State and Chairman of the National Peace Committee, NPC, Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar (rtd).

Vanguard Newspapers reports that Gen. Abubakar led members of the committee to a meeting with Atiku and his running mate, Mr. Peter Obi in Abuja on Thursday night.

The NPC is expected to meet President Muhammadu Buhari with the demands.

Top on the demand list was unfreezing of opposition politicians’ bank accounts followed by demilitarisarion of subsequent polls.

Other demands made by Atiku include:
*That accreditation of voters should take place before voting in subsequent elections.

*That there should be no deployment of the military in subsequent elections.

* That INEC should open its back end server to all participating parties.

*That there should be a release of all politicians detained illegally by FG.

A source at the meeting disclosed that Atiku “warned that tensions are building up in the land.”

NPC team included Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Bishop Kukah and Rev. Fr Atta Barkindo.

Atiku and his team informed the group that the election of Feb 23 was the worst since the country returned to democratic rule 20 years ago and that it was marked by brazen rigging with no consideration to the will of the people.

He listed the following as issues the PDP had with the Presidential polls:

*Deployment of the military was unconstitutional and in breach of Supreme Court judgement.

*That resultantly, a lot of malpractices between the INEC officers, the ruling party and the military took place to undermine the votes/voters of the PDP.

*That there was collaboration between INEC and FG to undermine the sanctity of the votes of the people.

*That this is the worst election in 20 years. No improvement from 2015.

Gen. Abdusalam and his team, it was learnt, pleaded with the PDP flag bearer to avoid anything that could jeopardise the nation’s peaceful co-existence.