APC should offer olive branch to those killed during Feb 25 elections –Yesufu, activist

An activist and staunch supporter of the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, in the February 25 presidential election, Mrs Aisha Yesufu, speaks on the proposed olive branch by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to aggrieved members of opposition parties and other issues, in this interview on Channels TV Politics Today, monitored by Linus Aleke

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, in a press conference offered an olive branch to all the parties who lost in the election, is your candidate willing to accept the offer?

I did watch and I heard when the National Chairman of the APC said he was extending the olive branch. The only thing I am going to say to him is to go and extend the same olive branch to all the people that were killed during the elections. When they get to accept and respond to him, he can then come and meet us. It is very condescending and patronising when people come out to speak in such manner after what had happened during the elections, which we are all witness to. A lot of people have to pay the ultimate price simply because they came out to vote. I am from Edo State and a lady died in Benin. What was her crime, her crime was that she came out to vote in a country that is supposed to be hers and we are talking about an olive branch here. If they had wanted to offer an olive branch then they must have done everything possible just like our party did to ensure free, fair, and credible elections. They are the government in power and they did not conduct credible elections. They unleashed mayhem on the country and he is there telling us about an olive branch, there is nothing to talk about the olive branch. Let them offer it to those who are currently in the mortuary or those who have already been buried.

Your candidate said that the election was flawed, which instance or documentary evidence do you have to validate this claim at the electoral tribunal?

Before I answer that question, so that we don’t keep asking questions about that, let me respond to it now. I watched former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s press conference when he was talking about southeast and Igbos having to wait for leadership before a process. I don’t know where he got that idea from, there is no Nigerian that is more Nigerian than the others, and it is so patronizing how they keep telling the southeast about that. There is no region in this country, and there is no tribe that had been more loyal to the PDP than the Igbos. And when of course, there was an opportunity for them to field Igbo candidates they misused that opportunity. Again he said something about Peter Obi getting scared and leaving the party. No, Peter Obi had the courage and the gods to leave the party and go to an unknown party and ran on that platform, which is something Atiku Abubakar has never been able to do. He left PDP and went to APC after he had gone to other several parties and then he came back to the same PDP that he has denigrated and said all sought of things about them. And coming back now to say that he would have made him a running mate, no, we can have the best been the running mate. Having said that, let me come back to the question you asked me, there are a lot. I think the person sitting down with you there is my former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, who spoke about how they rigged the Osun election four years ago, even though he had come out to deny that saying that it was not rigging he was going to say. You know something, the inside always matches the outside and whatever you have on the inside is capable of manifesting outside. Take Lagos State for example and I am going to give you specific examples, a female electorate was stabbed several places in her face, she went to the hospital treated the wounds, and came back to cast her ballot. People were denied the opportunity to vote, we watched the video of a thug in Lagos State who was telling voters that if they are not voting for APC, then they must not vote in that particular unit. We also saw how mayhem was unleashed on a lot of people. People were attacked, people were killed and people were injured. Let’s also talk about Kogi state where a chairman came into a polling unit and began to tear ballot papers. Apart from that, we also saw in Rivers and Imo states where governors shamelessly came out and participated in causing mayhem and destruction and not allowing free, fair, and credible elections. One thing you should know about me is that I don’t pander to anybody, I say it the way it is, and whatever I say here are my words. So, don’t come and tell me that I cannot say that on TV. Nigeria is at stake, this election is an election for survival. I had said that and I keep saying that. We have seen how those who say they are the ruling party, those who say they have everything, those who denigrated the people and say, let us see how you are going to get it, are the ones who became afraid and their supporters were the one who caused mayhem in the country. If they had the gods they would have allowed that free and fair elections, let us see who it is that the people wanted.

Do you agree with a former national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole that the election was free fair, and credible?

I heard what former Governor Adam Oshiomhole said and I am so surprised that you sat down there and allowed yourself to be rigged out of your programme. At one time I was wondering, were having an interview with only one person or two people. First of all let us talk about Lagos State where he said that Bola Tinubu lost Lagos State, and therefore the election was not rigged. That is just the power of four people twitting in a room. What we are saying is that even the Lagos State was rigged, the number that APC got was much lower than what we finally have. What we are talking about is that a lot of polling units’ results were changed and I think one of the things they forgot was the fact that polling units by polling units’ results were going to be uploaded. It is not what they normally have where they just collate everything. A lot of people have been coming out to say look, one of the things the law requires is that every agent is allowed to take a picture of EC08 results and people have that. Our agents also have that, in Lagos State, we have all the polling units’ results and we know we got double what was given. It is so surprising how former Governor Adams Oshiomhole will talk about treason and Obasanjo, that he rigged him out and that he killed many people. That is unfortunate because he is turning out to be the Obasanjo that he is criticising. It took the people of Edo State to tell him that Edo is not Lagos. We don’t accept that kind of thing. We did not allow him to do the same thing and even up to this time that is what we have. Pain defeat that he talked about, we don’t have an issue with the pain of defeat. A defeat is done in a fair process, in a process that is not corrupt, and in an election that is free fair, and credible. What we have today is impunity, corruption, and a lack of intelligence.

How?

We saw a situation where intelligently there were cancellations and mutilation of polling units’ results that have been uploaded. We have seen situations where a polling unit result from another state will be taken to polling units in another state. I think the one in Jigawa was found in Imo and several other places. We won in Plateau State, and with our record, we got over a million votes, but that was drastically reduced by INEC. In Lagos State, APC did not get the required 25 per cent, and in several other places. What we had was continuous rigging going on ahead and ahead to reduce our number but at the end of the day, we would all go to the court. One of the things I will state here categorically is that Nigerians have never faced the judiciary. We had always taken our protests to the legislative and executive arms of government. But this time, the people of Nigeria are going to face the judiciary. We are all going to be witnesses, we are going to come with our polling units’ results. I have the picture of my polling units, I have not had time to go to INEC yet because I am so upset with the whole process. But you know what every one of us will do is to go there, to check and confirm and they should bring those papers to let us see. This is the time for us, the Nigeria judiciary, the supreme court of Nigeria should know that the Kenyan Supreme Court justices do not have two heads, they each have one head. That judicial rascality that we have seen again and again in this country where the saying that the judiciary is the last hope of the common man is no longer attainable.