The Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council has stated that the former Vice President is challenging the outcome of the February 25th presidential polls to retrieve ‘the real outcome’ of the election.

CityNews recalls that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress winner of the poll after scoring 8,794,726 votes to beat Atiku (6,984,520), Peter Obi (6,101,533) and Rabiu Kwankwaso (1,496,687) of the PDP, Labour Party, and the New Nigeria People’s Party respectively.

Speaking with The PUNCH on Friday, the media adviser to the former Vice President, Paul Ibe, said the decision to contest the outcome of the presidential election was borne out of the need to strengthen democracy in Nigeria and not because of Atiku’s interest.

He stated that Atiku Abubakar would walk the entire distance to challenge what he called “INEC’s breach of its own rules and guidelines.

“Has the real outcome of the exercise been shown to the people? Nigerians, home and abroad, were excited at the prospect of a technologically driven election this year. Before the election, mock tests were conducted on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, and the Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, expressed optimism that BVAS would work. He called it the game changer.

“If billions of naira were released for the procurement of the BVAS, shouldn’t Nigerians ask question why the device was now compromised during the election? If results, as were being announced by Yakubu, had not been uploaded on INEC’s viewing portal, won’t the commission tell Nigerians what happened? These are the issues we are talking about today.”

On his part, the Special Adviser to Atiku Abubakar on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, said the former Vice President would not back down.

According to him, anyone expecting the PDP presidential candidate to back out of the legal option must remember that everything was about getting things right for the country.