The Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate, Mr. Donald Etim Duke, has said he voted for himself as President of Nigeria.
Speaking to newsmen after casting his vote at ward five unit five at the A. M. E. Zion Primary School Diamond Hill by 11 am, Duke said: “I am voting for myself, I am voting for Social Democratic Party (SDP) which I am a presidential candidate”.
Without minding that his party adopted President Buhari as its presidential candidate, Duke lamented the action of his party members and said he would not want to castigate few persons in his party who adopted Buhari as their candidate but said they are undermining themselves and undermining the party.
“Regardless of what they have done, Donald Duke is the name on the ballot, so if few of them decides that they want to align themselves with some other person, they could have done that without bringing the party involved.
“Even the party guidelines, the party constitution makes such decision unconstitutional, it is wrong to align with another party’s candidate, so I don’t know what they were doing, this is just 15 persons, they are doing their views, it is not the views of the majority of the party.
“Besides, at this stage, I am not appealing to the party any longer, I am are appealing to the general public. I urged the presidential candidates to accept defeat when it comes and submit themselves to the will of the people.
“They should bow down to the will of the people and support the winner. If your intention is to better the country and one person emerges, rally round that person so that we can achieve our common objectives.
“It is like a football team, you say you are not the captain of the team and say I am not going to play, that is wrong, if I am not the captain of the team, can I support the captain and others so that the team can be a winning team, that is what it all about,” he stated.
Generally, Donald said the election was peaceful and there was no agitation. “I hope we can keep that throughout the day, besides, people intend to make it work, that I hope INEC and other agencies involved would leave up to the biddings,” he said.
Duke, who was the former governor of Cross River State, commended the peaceful atmosphere which prevailed during the Presidential and National Assembly elections in Calabar.
He said Nigerians were ready to make a change hence their determination to come out in large number to vote, “The poll is largely peaceful and I am satisfied with the turnout. Hopefully, by mid-day, the number will increase but you can see the atmosphere that the poll is generally peaceful,” Duke said.
However, DAILY POST observed that the polling booth no 003 located at Diamond did not receive result sheets on time until it was about 10 am, while people milled around without accreditation. As soon as the INEC officials arrived with the result sheets, voting started.
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