{"id":16744,"date":"2019-04-10T19:52:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T19:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=16744"},"modified":"2019-04-10T19:52:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T19:52:18","slug":"atiku-disowns-pukka-billboards-posters-in-abuja-yola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=16744","title":{"rendered":"Atiku disowns \u2018Pukka\u2019 billboards, posters in Abuja, Yola"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emmanuel Oloniruha<\/strong>\/Abuja and Martins Abochol<\/strong>\/Yola (NAN<\/strong>)
\nThe Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)\u00a0Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar has disowned campaign posters titled \u201cThe Pukka\u2019\u2019 that festooned some of the major streets of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja.
\nAtiku disowned the posters in a statement issued by his media adviser, Mr Paul Ibe, on Wednesday.
\nPukka, an Hindi word, means\u00a0\u201cauthentic, genuine, sure, solid and excellent\u201d.
\nThe posters boldly carry Abubakar\u2019s portrait and the message, \u2018HE Atiku Abubakar GCON, The Real and The Right\u2019, with a web address www.deservation.org, which the News Agency of Nigeria found belongs to a group of the same name based in Magaji\/Sanda ward in Yola.
\nNAN correspondent in Yola confirmed that the posters have also appeared on some streets in the capital of Adamawa, Atiku\u2019s home state.
\nDr.Sani Adamu, the director-general of the Atiku Deservation Group, an Atiku Abubakar campaign group, claimed the group was not waging a political campaign or breaching the campaign rules of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
\n\u201cOur attention has been drawn to posters of Abubakar, Presidential candidate of PDP in the 2019 election being circulated in Abuja\u201d, said Paul Ibe in a statement.
\n\u201cWe dissociate the former Vice President of Nigeria from the said posters in circulation. The campaign season is over. The tainted electoral victory by the incumbent is being challenged in court.
\n\u201cWe refuse to be distracted, which is exactly the objective of our opponents, but to remain focused on diligently pursuing our election petition with a view to retrieving the stolen mandate.\u2019\u2019
\nIbe earlier in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said that the posters\u00a0had nothing to do with the just concluded elections and the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization had no connection with it.
\n\u201cI have not seen the posters. I am just hearing it from you. We are not aware of it. Whatever it is it not connected to the PDP campaign organisation.
\n\u201cThe campaign season has long been over but following the electoral hype by the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abubakar, as a democrat has submitted himself to the electoral tribunal to decide on matters arising from the concluded election.\u2019\u2019
\nA search on the web address (www.deservation.org) shows Atiku Deservation Movement (Project 774 for Atiku 2019) with RC 1167591 with the contact Magaji\/Sanda Ward Yola South Adamawa State as well as phone number and a mail address.
\nThe boldness of the campaign and the meaning it connotes have triggered questions whether the group behind it has not breached the electoral law. The campaign for presidential election began on 19 November 2018 and officially ended 48 hours to the election initially scheduled for 16 February, 2019.
\nSection 99(1) of the Electoral Act, 1999 as amended states that every political party shall commence campaigns 90 days before polling day and end 24 hours prior to that day.
\nMr Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of\u00a0\u00a0the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in an interview with NAN, said that the posters could not be considered as campaign materials.
\nOyekanmi, who said he had not seen any of the posters said if a poster has no party logo or name, the commission does not consider it to be campaign materials.
\n\u201cIs there anything like party name or logo on it? If a poster does not contain any of these or \u2018vote for a person\u2019 the commission does not see it as campaign.The election is over and I wonder if anybody will be campaigning for an election that had been concluded,\u2019\u2019 Oyekanmi said.
\nDr. Sani Adamu, the Executive Director of the Deservation group in a telephone interview with NAN, justified the poster\u2019s PUKKA theme. He claimed that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the PDP in the just concluded presidential election is Nigeria\u2019s authentic president.
\nReminded that Abubakar already has a case before the presidential election petition tribunal, Adamu expressed confidence that Abubakar would get justice at the tribunal.
\nHe insisted that the posters in circulation were not for campaign, adding that they did not carry the logo of any political party.
\nHe also explained that the posters did not carry \u2018vote\u2019 Abubakar, insisting that it was not for campaign.
\nHe said that the group was established to galvanise support for credible candidates that can make Nigeria great.
\n\u201cWe support only candidates and not political parties,\u201d he said.
\nAbubakar was also recently reported to have hired two American lawyers, close to President Donald Trump, to lobby Trump\u2019s inner circle and the Congress, so that the United States can delay recognising President Muhammadu Buhari as the elected President of Nigeria. He also wanted to be recognised \u2018as the authentic President\u2019 of Nigeria, going by the claims he has made at the tribunal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emmanuel Oloniruha\/Abuja and Martins Abochol\/Yola (NAN) The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)\u00a0Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar has disowned campaign posters titled \u201cThe Pukka\u2019\u2019 that festooned some of the major streets of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. Atiku disowned the posters in a statement issued by his media adviser, Mr Paul Ibe, on Wednesday. Pukka, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}