On Wednesday, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, a former candidate for the Peoples Trust in the 2019 general election, congratulated Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima on their victories in the election that was held on February 25.
He urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to sit up and get its facts straight while pleading with God to give them the wisdom to “bring the nation horribly split together and to bring succor promptly to the poor people of Nigeria who have suffered so much”.
This was stated by Hashim, a Presidential candidate for the All Progressives Congress in the 2023 election.
He demanded that “the business of national reconciliation and healing is urgent and cannot be delayed to move the nation forward.
He said, “Asiwaju’s government must not be the government of the victors alone but an inclusive government, a government of every useful hand for the task of national unity and prosperity.”
The APC leader also praised the security services for their efforts to foster a peaceful environment.
“INEC should improve its operations in the conduct of the governorship and state assembly elections, and all relevant agencies should address the dark sides of the just concluded election such as wide scale voter intimidation observed in the reports of many election observers.
“Our democracy must mature beyond the perennial problem of voter intimidation, especially voters who are considered as non-indigenes.
To the INEC, Hashim said “the election agency has to work harder. It has to get its acts together as its conduct almost marred the election.”
He also expressed his congratulations to other candidates, particularly the Waziri Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, and His Excellency, Peter Obi, a former governor of the state of Anambra, who ran a strong campaign for the Labour Party.
“Despite their reservations about the conduct of the election, particularly the collation of results, they have continuously conducted themselves as patriots and democrats that they are using all legal and legitimate channels to ventilate their grievances.This is the way of democracy.
“State governors must end the ugly practices of putting citizens under pressure to change their political choices through traditional rulers.
“We are a Republic and the franchise of all citizens must be protected regardless of their ethnic descent anywhere they have chosen to live.
“The democracy that my colleagues and I some three and half decades ago fought for and staked our lives for, is to allow the equality of all citizens and their rights to make their political choices in any corner of Nigeria they have chosen to live.”
