By Soni Daniel, Abuja
A week after the presidential election  which threw up President Muhammadu Buhari as  winner, his rival, Atiku Abubakar, has come under pressure to drop legal challenge to the poll.

PRESS BRIEFING: Vice Presidential Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Peter Obi, addressing newsmen on the outcome of 2019 Presidential Election at his residence in Onitsha, yesterday. Photo: NAN

A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, had insisted at the weekend that Atiku should resist the temptation of going to court.

Agbakoba earlier last Wednesday advised Atiku, who contested the election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), against legal challenge.

Many countries including the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) also endorsed Buhari’s re-election.

But Atiku’s spokesman, Phrank Shuaibu, told Sunday Vanguard, last night, that  only unpatriotic persons  were at the forefront of the pressure on  the former vice president not to seek legal redress to reclaim his mandate.

Shuaibu accused those counselling Atiku against going to court of “trying to give legitimacy to illegality and brush aside the rape of democracy”, which, he said, was orchestrated during the presidential and National Assembly polls.

“I can tell you that all right-thinking and patriotic Nigerians across the country have been mounting pressure on the former Vice President to go to court to reclaim his mandate and I am not aware of any sane person who has advised otherwise to the best of knowledge,” the spokesperson said.

“Clearly so far, most reasonable Nigerians who have visited Atiku since the conclusion of the poll have been persuading him to go to court. It is only people with ulterior motives who would ask the PDP presidential candidate to stay away from court”.

Asked to comment on the street march purportedly by two million women in Abuja to persuade Atiku from seeking redress in court, Shuaibu described the women as a rented crowd that should not be taken seriously given the level of rigging which he claimed attended the polls.

https://newlive.vanguardngr.com/2019/02/call-buhari-now-congratulate-him-atikus-close-friend-tells-ex-vp/

INEC had, on Wednesday, declared Buhari as the winner of the presidential election and  Atiku as the runner-up, a development that angered the Waziri Adamawa.

PDP also expressed the bid to reclaim the mandate which, according to it, was stolen.

The party said it had already consulted 18 top lawyers to pursue the matter in court but it was unclear, last night, if any document had been placed before the nation’s apex court  which handles such challenge.

https://newlive.vanguardngr.com/2019/02/atiku-not-destined-to-be-nigerias-president-apc/