Lagos — All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) presidential candidate, retired Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday said he would not challenge the outcome of the presidential polls because the nation's supreme court had already laid the foundation for electoral fraud in the country.

Making a formal statement after his defeat in last Saturday's presidential election, Buhari, who spoke through his campaign Director-General, Sule Hanma, explained that the verdict of the apex court on his petition against the outcome of the 2003 presidential election which was delivered after 30 months of litigation, pushed a verdict that criminal violation of the law is not a crime."

He said "we shall be wasting our time and resources going to election tribunal. In 2003, we did so and wasted or time, the supreme court laid the foundation for the rigging of elections in Nigeria."

However, Buhari's stance came as Action Congress (AC) said yesterday that the results of 2007 elections will not stand, cutting massive electoral irregularities.

European Union Observer Group submitted yesterday that the poll fell below international standards and therefore should be re-run.

AC, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the results of the various positions announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were not reflective of votes cast by a select few in vintage position.

It noted that the reports of international and local observers have vindicated the party that the elections was massively rigged in favour of the ruling party.

It said "We are vindicated in our assessment of the elections by their widespread condemnation by local and international election monitors, especially the

Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the EU Observer Mission, just to mention a few.

"The summary of their observations is simple: that the elections fell far short of basic international and regional standards for democratic elections.

"Specifically, the EU Observer mission said the elections were "marred by poor organizations, lack of essential transparency, widespread irregularities, significant evidence of fraud particularly during the result collation process, voter disenfranchisement at different stages of the process, lack of equal conditions for contestants and numerous incidents of violence".

Speaking, Chief Tom Ihkimi, of the AC said at the venue of the declaration of the result, in Abuja, that his party has rejected the results and would be heading for the courts. He alleged that INEC had only collated results in 13 states when it went ahead to decalre the result in favour of the ruling PDP.

Meanwhile the European Union Observer Group has said that the April 14 and 21st governorship and House of Assembly as well as the Presidential and National Assembly elections fell short of basic International standards and could not meet the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians.

Marx Van de Berg, the Chief Observer who briefed the Press at Transcorp Hotel, yesterday afternoon, on the preliminary report of his group's observation remarked, "These elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible.

"This is all more regrettable since they were held in an improved atmosphere in which freedoms of expression and assembly were broadly respected during campaigning, the courts played generally positive and independent role and the people showed remarkable commitment to democracy, eargerly engaging in the electoral process and waiting patiently to vote in often very dificult circumstance", he said.

According to EU's Chief Observer, the "elections were mared by poor organisation, lack of essential transparency, widespread procedural irregularities, significant evidence of fraud, particularly during the collation process, voter disenfranchisement at various statges of the process, and lack of equal condition for contestants".

Meanwhile Buhari did not rule out the possibility of aggrieved ANPP governorship candidates pursuing his case at the tribunal, he said he would provide support to such candidates.

He claimed that the presidential election results announced by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were released with results obtained from only 12 states.

He claimed that the ANPP agent for the presidential polls, one Rear Admiral Amusun, told him that the commission announced the results with only results obtained form 12 states, and that at a point during the collation of results, INEC national commissioners abandoned what they were doing and announced a fake result.

"We can not go to court because nobody has been able to get to power through the law courts in the country. We have tried it and failed and it is up to Nigerians to decide what they want. You can only take power through the ballot box; through the gun or through a revolution," he emphasized.

On whether he would advocate mass action or protests, he said it is up to Nigerians, adding that the ANPP presidential campaign organization would never curtail the freedom of Nigerians to pursue their rights according to what was stipulated in law.

Listing noticeable flaws of the presidential election, Buhari stated that "in Borno state, only one-third of the required presidential ballot papers were received at sunset and even these did not reach their destinations state-wide."

"A former attorney-general of the federation reported that he along with some clergymen and judges went round Onitsha in Anambra state trying to vote without being able to do so.

"For all practical purposes, there was no election in the whole of the Niger Delta, nor in Gombe state where electoral materials were kept in Government House and released piecemeal to some constituencies," he emphasized.

On his problems with voting in Kaduna north, Buhari insisted that "505 registered voters received only 165 presidential ballot papers and scores of willing voters who queued for hours were unable to vote.

"The election was neither free nor fair nor credible. In a nut shell there has been no election worth the name in Nigeria on Saturday. I completely and whole-heartedly reject these as a sham. It was a disgrace and a shame to INEC-a great dishonor to the PDP government," he stressed.