The Federal Government has warned Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 presidential election, and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, against inciting Nigerians to violence over the outcome of the Presidential elections.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed issued the warning in Washington DC where he is meeting with some international media organizations and Think-tanks over the just concluded 2023 general elections. During the respective interactions with the media organizations, the minister said it was wrong for Obi in one breath to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and on another breath incite people to violence.
“Obi and his Vice, Datti Ahmed cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sworn-in on May 29, it will be the end of democracy in Nigeria. This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing. Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person, he is not the democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins the election,” he said
The minister said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as they both failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared as president.
“The constitution has stringent criteria for anybody who wants to be president of the country. Not only must he has the plurality of vote cast in an election, he must also have scored one-quarter of votes cast in at least 25 states. Only the President-elect met the criteria by scoring 8.79 million votes and having one-quarter of all the vote cast in 29 states of the federation,” he said
Mohammed pointed out that while Atiku came second with 6.9 million votes, Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of votes cast in 15 states.
“You cannot win an election in a poll where you came to a distant third position and failed to meet constitutional requirements. Peter Obi, while complaining of fraud has not disowned his victory in Lagos,” he said.
Elaborating on his mission to the U.S., the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition on the election. He stated that the opposition, having lost in the election was alleging fraud, calling for its cancellation and constitution of the interim government.
“We have come here to balance that skewed narratives and to tell the world unambiguously that the just concluded general elections in Nigeria is the fairest, most transparent and authentic in the history of Nigeria. The election is the fairest and credible because of the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS) which I regard as a game changer.”
