Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, says the electoral process cannot be perfect and devoid of manipulations in some areas but politicians must accept the result of a free and fair elections.
Mr Tinubu disclosed this to journalists on Saturday at his home in Lagos, while insisting that he would emerge president from Saturday’s election because he had worked harder than other candidates.
“A democrat, a true democrat, must accept the result of a free and fair elections. As a democrat, you must have faith in the system. Once you have faith in the system, it is not a problem to accept the result of a free and fair elections,” Mr Tinubu said when asked if he would accept the result of Saturday’s election if he loses.
“Perception is one thing. On rare occasions that you have skirmishes and lack of confidence, it is created by the politicians. Not the electoral process. In the electoral process we cannot see 100 per cent perfection. People have to tolerate that. Equally when you are talking of manipulation in some areas, you have to evaluate what is material. Materiality comes to play. How many compared to total turn out or total who voted. You’ve got to accept the result of a fairly responsible voter’s decision,” he added.
In Lagos, Mr Tinubu’s home state, Nigerians witnessed disruption of the electoral process on Saturday by thugs suspected to be loyal to the former two-term governor of Lagos, while the late arrival of INEC’s staff and failure of BVAS affected the process in some parts of the country.
Mr Tinubu, 70, is up against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.