APC urges opposition to embrace Tinubu as President-elect

The Director of Diaspora Directorate, All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Mr Ade Omole, has called on opposition political leaders to embrace Sen. Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president-elect.

He made the call while speaking with newsmen on Sunday in Abuja.

Omole urged the opposition to emulate World leaders who saw the need, congratulated and recognised Tinubu as Nigeria’s president-elect.

While noting that the though there were minimal hitches in a few states during the Feb. 25 presidential election, he however said they were not enough to discredit the entire process.

The official congratulated Tinubu, a former two-term governor of Lagos State and APC flagbearer at the election for emerging as President-elect.

Omole advised that rather than heating up the polity with unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud during the election, members of the opposition parties should sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign.

This, he said, was especially as the credibility of the election had been ascertained by critical stakeholders.

He noted that world leaders had also started congratulating Tinubu after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared him the winner of the election, having satisfied the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Omole listed some of the global leaders including those of the United State of America through Ned Price (U.S State Department), who said the Feb. 25 presidential election was competitive and represented a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy.

He said other world leaders that had congratulated Tinubu included France President, Emmanuel Macron; Ukrainian President Zelensky and President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, among others.

He recalled that Akufo-Addo had said that Tinubu’s victory at the polls would go a long way to enhance the quality of governance, the rule of law and the performance of the Nigerian economy.

He added that the President of the Republic of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission had also congratulated Tinubu as Nigeria’s president-elect.

He said Thabo Mbeki, former South Africa President and Head of the Commonwealth Observer Mission to Nigeria had also congratulated Tinubu, urging him not to be far from the African continent when he eventually assumed office.

Omole, therefore, advised members of the opposition political parties, especially their presidential candidates, to follow the same path of honour and congratulate Tinubu who had already extended the olive branch to them.

This, he added, was the least a good sportsman would do in the face of defeat just like former President Goodluck Jonathan did in 2015 by conceding defeat even before INEC announced President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of that election.