President Muhammadu Buhari says it was time the country is afforded the right to move on in the interest of all Nigerians regardless of how they voted after the final legal bid before the highest court.
President Buhari said this in a statement issued on Wednesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by Garba Shehu, his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity on the Supreme Court ruling over the February 23 Presidential Election.
The president welcomed the ruling of the Supreme Court that dismissed the case brought before them by a former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He thanked the people for the mandate they gave to him to run the affairs of the country for another four years.
Buhari thanked the former vice-president and his party for undertaking their campaign through protestations to the courts, saying that they had conducted themselves in line with the laws of the country they sought to lead.
The statement read: “The government – and people of Nigeria – have been aware that the result of the February 23, 2019, presidential election has been settled now for some eight months.
“President Buhari was re-elected by an absolute majority of 55.6 per cent of the national vote, with Nigerians casting nearly 4 million more votes for President Buhari than his nearest challenger – representing a margin close to 15 per cent of the total vote.
“The former Vice President and his political party exercised their rights, under the Nigerian Constitution and electoral laws, to petition the courts and dispute this result.
“They did so first at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which ruled in September 2019 against them. Now – following his appeal to the Supreme Court and its ruling to dismiss their case for ‘lacking merit’ – this matter is now closed….”
The statement added that the elected President and his government now must be enabled to focus solely on addressing the issues that concerned the country.
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