The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led administration tried to bend the electoral system to its advantage during the 2015 presidential election, the presidency said.
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu alleged that PDP administration tried to set bobby traps in the way of Buhari’s emergence.
The statement was titled, ‘Assent into law of the electoral act 2022: Landmark moment for the nation’.
The statement said, “It is easy to forget that the election of 2015 was the first time in the history of Nigeria that power peacefully changed hands at the ballot box. It was the first time any party or candidate not from the incumbent PDP had won a nationwide contest since the re-establishment of democracy.
“This came despite the then administration pulling every lever of its sixteen-year incumbency to bend the electoral system to its advantage.
“President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election by a 15 per cent and a 4 million vote margin in 2019 was therefore equally decisive: it was the first time a non-PDP administration had even been returned to office to a consecutive term.
“The last two contests represent the levelling of the political playing-field between long-time incumbents and long-time opposition by sheer force of citizens’ determination for change. Nigerians voted so decisively for the President and the APC, and the margins so significant that the result could not be in doubt.”
