APC dissolves presidential campaign council despite call for rerun by Atiku, Obi

Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has dissolved its presidential campaign council with immediate effect.

The dissolution was contained in a statement on Saturday night, jointly signed by the Director General of the APC PCC, Governor Simon Lalong and the Secretary of the council, James Faleke.

The APC PCC was set up in October 2022 to prosecute the 2023 presidential election of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.

Mr 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, Mr Obi and Atiku are challenging the outcome of the election at the presidential election tribunal.

The dissolution of the PCC is coming 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, Mr 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.

We are focusing on the inauguration The statement by Messrs Lalong and Faleke stated that the ruling party decided to dissolve the PCC to focus on the inauguration of the president-elect.

They stated that it is in the best interest of the party to dissolve the PCC with immediate effect.

“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 a 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 reads in part.