#NigeriaDecides2023: Concerned Citizens protest presidential election results

By Ehis Agugu

A group of Concerned Citizens yesterday took to the streets of Benin, Edo State to protest the rigging of the results of the presidential election.

INEC had on Wednesday declared the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the 25 February election.

According to the result announced by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State polled 8, 794, 726 to defeat his major rivals; Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6, 984, 520 votes and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) who secured 6,101,533 votes of the 24, 965, 218 total vote cast.

Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came a distant fourth with 1,496,687 votes.

The leader of the group, Honourable Shadrach Udugbai said the result of the 2023 presidential elections is unacceptable to Nigerians at large because the peoples decision has not been rendered in the results we look at today.

We have suffered enough and cannot fold our hands to watch this rape of democracy. Some persons within the Nigerian political block have turned themselves into principalities and have continually perpetuated all manner of political crimes, raping Nigerians of their right to choose who governs them.

There is hunger in the land, there is double digits inflation, there is massive unemployment and insecurity. Everything starts with getting a good leader and it must be done conclusively.

I want INEC to go back to the Electoral Acts that states that before you will be declared as the president of Nigeria, you must secure 24% in 2/3 of the 36 states and the Federal Capital. We are dejected and utterly displeased and need INEC to redress this.

Also, Comrade Christopher Ojeikere said, the act by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declaring a man who did not win the 2023 Presidential Election as the winner is the height of injustice.

This has disenfranchised Nigerians and we want it to be on record for Nigerian people to know, it will be on record for our unborn Children to Know. It will be on record for democrats all over the world to know that there was a rape of democracy today, he said.