Prominent Kaduna Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Mahmud Gumi has called on the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and other well meaning Nigerians to reject the 2019 presidential election results as released by INEC.
He said the election was characterized by massive rigging and official intimidation.
Gumi stated that Buhari did not win the election based on his competence or performance in office as Nigeria is undergoing massive corruption and insecurity more than before.
He said: ‘The economy, security and corruption in the nation is now worse and the nation is plagued with more youth unemployment, more ethnic killings, more kidnappings, poverty, and wide spread corruption in every sector of the society. As such, the president only used his incumbency factor and massive intimidation of the opponents by security agencies to win the elections.’’
In a statement he issued in Kaduna and made available to the press, Gumi said EFCC was also used to harass opponents of the president and there was massive vote buying, use of public funds in mobilization for campaigns, posters and the monopoly of national television and radio for the ruling party. There was also the deliberate use of religion as a campaign strategy in several mosques in the north just as there was massive deployment of security forces, including the army, to favour the ruling party.
He said the election was manipulated from inception down to collation centres and the card reader was not used according to electoral law, as in most places results obtained in voting centres were massively inflated by agents of government.
He said:‘’I call on Atiku who despite all odds made impressive performance to reject the result and challenge in a competent Court of Law so that Nigerians will have the leader they freely voted for.
The 2019 presidential elections, he said, exposed the deep rot in the conservative northern muslim society and he was shocked seeing poor village women lying up and receiving N500 note each with instruction to vote the ruling party. He said there were also underage voters. He said the case in Zamfara was even worse and urged the president, INEC chairman, and the security chiefs who are all Muslims to fear God considering the colossal rigging which took place under their watch. He said future INEC chairmen should be elected and not appointed by the President.
