We’re anxious to meet Atiku in Court -Keyamo

The All Progressives Congress (APC) was prepared and eager to meet the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar in court to prove the 2019 election was devoid of rigging, its Director Strategic Communication of the APC Presidential Campaign Council Festus Keyamo (SAN) has said.

Keyamo, in a statement in Abuja, explained that resorting to court was the only democratic way of ventilating his perceived grievances about the election.

He stressed the council was not in any way prevailing on the former Vice President not to challenge the outcome of the exercise in court.

Keyamo denied reports the council has written to some international organisations and development partners to prevail on Atiku not to challenge the outcome in Court.

He said the body that wrote the letter was not known to the council and does not speak for it and the President.

According to him: “Our attention has been drawn to some news item and posts on social media reporting that we wrote a letter to some international bodies to prevail on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar not to proceed to court to challenge the result of the 2019 Presidential Election.

“Our investigation reveals that a letter to that effect was purportedly written by a certain ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’.

 “This is the second time we will be informing the public that the said ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’ does not act at the behest of the APC Presidential Campaign Council nor does it represent the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation in any way.

“As a result, whatever it has released does not represent the position of the APC Presidential Campaign Council or President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Our official position is that we believe that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has a constitutional right to seek redress in court and we do not seek in any way to curtail that right.

“In fact, it is the resort to the court that is the only democratic way to ventilate his perceived grievance and any attempt to restrict or discourage the exercise of such right would be an invitation to anarchy.

“In addition, we are very anxious to meet Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in court in order to show the world in a conclusive manner the free and fair nature of the comprehensive defeat of Atiku at the polls. An election is not termed ‘rigged’ only by the mere claim of it by the loser.

“That is what Atiku and the PDP want to ram down our throats. Unfortunately for them, international, continental and sub-regional observers (who can be seen as neutral by all standards) ALL declared the election to be free, fair and credible. No ego-massaging narrative can change that.

“We therefore totally disassociate ourselves from the letter purportedly written by one of, perhaps, many support groups of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“They may have a right to their opinion, but it does not represent our official position.“