By David Lawani, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dissolved its Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) inaugurated last year to prosecute the 2023 presidential election.
In a statement late Saturday jointly signed by the Director-General of the APC PCC, Governor Simon Lalong, and the Secretary of the council, James Faleke, the party noted that the chairman of the PCC, President Muhammadu Buhari; the president-elect, Bola Tinubu and other leaders, thanked all council members, leaders and supporters for working assiduously for the resounding victory of APC.
The APC PCC was set up in October 2022 to prosecute the 2023 presidential election of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.
Tinubu defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election. He scored a total of 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party got 6,101,533 votes.
However, Obi and Atiku are challenging the outcome of the election at the presidential election tribunal.
The dissolution of the PCC came amid ongoing post-election litigation, where Atiku is asking the tribunal to cancel the 25th February election.
Atiku, in the petition he submitted to the tribunal, urged the court to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the 25 February poll in thousands of polling units.
Also, Obi’s petition contains a prayer for the cancellation of the presidential election and urged the court to order INEC to conduct a fresh one.
*Dissolution necessary to retune party towards May 29 inauguration of Tinubu, Shettima
In a statement dissolving the PCC, the party said, “Since the campaign council began in September 2022, we have witnessed an unprecedented, relentless, and engaging mobilisation of our members nationwide and in the diaspora towards securing the majority popular votes for the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential ticket. The journey has been a worthy one with our hard-won victory.
“The credit goes to all our members particularly, the leaders and members of the various campaign directorates.
“We would like to express our deepest appreciation to President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR), for his unwavering support and leadership throughout the campaign. We could not have achieved this level of success without his single-mindedness, commitment, and forthrightness.
“However, we have concluded that it is in the best interest of the campaign and its stakeholders for us to dissolve our council with immediate effect. This has become necessary to retune us towards the May 29, 2023, inauguration of the President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. The process of transitioning into a new era of Renewed Hope is underway and all our energies and activities must reflect the principles underlying this process.
“We hope that you will all continue to stay involved in Nigeria’s political process and to advocate for issues that you believe in. Our democracy is stronger when we all participate in the political process with patriotism. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your support, dedication, and hard work”, the statement said in part.
