approves Atiku’s court threat

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with the members of the National Peace Committee (NPC) headed by former Head of State, General Absulsalami Abubakar at the presidential villa, Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar

The Committee went to present the concerns raised by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the outcome of the February 23 election and the forthcoming governorship and house of assembly elections.

President Buhari was declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner of the election after polling 15,191,847 votes to defeat the candidate of the PDP, Atiku who scored 11, 262, 978 votes.

Speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting which lasted for about an hour, at the President’s office, General Abdulsalami acknowledged that the results of the presidential elections have raised a lot of dust with grievances expressed across various divide.

He said that he was pleased to hear that the PDP has decided to approach the court to seek redress instead of resorting to violence.

According to him, “As much as we have grievances, l am glad that the PDP say they are going to court to challenge the process, l think this is the right way to go about it, and l hope and pray that we will maintain this.”

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The former Head of State confirmed that members of the committee had met with the presidential candidate of the PDP who raised concerns over the conduct and outcome of the presidential election as well as the forthcoming elections.

He, however explained that what the former Vice President raised were concerns and not conditions as being speculated in some section of the media.

He said “The Presidential election result has raised a lot of dust and the people feel aggrieved. Yesterday l met the PDP Presidential candidate and his party in other to ensure that this peace committee ensure that really, our concern is about Nigeria.

“Atiku presented his grievances and his observations, he did not present any conditions, he gave his complaints, which we have come to presented and discuss with Mr. President to see what can be done.

“And in other to listen to their grievances and what they think has gone wrong and we are here today to see his Excellency the President in other to relay the fears and concerns of the PDP and Mr. President he listen to us and has taken note of what we have told him.

“Nigerians should please on behalf of this country and all of us, regardless, we need peace. This country is very, very important to all of us. We are not talking about self-interest, we are talking about the interest of the country.

“I keep saying, whenever there is violence, we are not going to see violence in Ikoyi, in the Villa and you will not find violence in the various government houses in this country. It is always the poor man that get to kill themselves and so on,” he added.

Other members of the committee that attended the meeting with the president were the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Mathew Hassan Kukah, His Grace, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Catholic Bishop of Abuja Archdiocese and the NPC Secretary.