* Lists 6 demands

By Steve Oko

As the dust raised by the February 23 presidential poll is yet to settle, candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has given conditions to the Federal Government for peace to rain.

Atiku had rejected the outcome of the poll in which President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, was declared the winner.

The PDP candidate had accused the electoral umpire of manipulating the result of the poll in favour of Buhari, and vowed never to accept the result.

But when he was met Thurday by the Abdulsalam Abubakar (red)  – led  National Peace Committee,  Atiku gave six conditions upon which he could allow peace to rain.

One major demand Atiku presented to NPC was demilitarisarion of subsequent polls.

Another  demand Atiku made was unfreezing of opposition politicians’ bank accounts.

Both  Atiku and his running mate, Mr. Peter Obi were  in the meeting yesterday in Abuja.

The NPC is expected to meet President Muhammadu Buhari government with the demands .

Other demands by Atiku were:
*That accreditation of voters should take place before voting in subsequent elections.

*That there should be no deployment of the military in subsequent elections.

* That INEC should open its back end server to all participating parties.

*That there should be a release of all politicians detained illegally by FG.

A source at the meeting disclosed that Atiku “warned that tensions are building up in the land.”

NPC team included Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Bishop Kukah and Rev. Fr Atta Barkindo.

Atiku and his team informed the group that the election of Feb 23 was the worst in 20 years  since the country returned to democratic rule. and that  it was marked by brazen rigging with no consideration to the will of the people.

They listed the following as issues they had with the Presidential polls:

*Deployment of the military was unconstitutional and in breach of Supreme Court judgement.

*That resultantly, a lot of malpractices between the INEC officers, the ruling party and the military took place to undermine the votes/voters of the PDP.

*That there was collaboration between INEC and FG to undermine the sanctity of the votes of the people.

*That this is the worst election in 20 years. No improvement from 2015.

It was learnt that Gen. Abdusalam and his team pleaded with the PDP flag bearer to avoid anything that could jeopardise the nation’s peaceful co-existence