During his official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington DC, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, issued a serious warning to Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, against inciting an uprising in Nigeria over the outcome of the 2023 presidential elections.
Mohammed disclosed that Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, claimed that Nigeria’s democracy would come to an end if Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, was inaugurated on May 29.
The minister stated, “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.”
Mohammed added that Obi was attempting to incite an uprising in the country and accused him of being a desperate person who was not the democrat he claimed to be. He described Obi’s statement as treasonous and accused him of inviting insurrection.
Mohammed also noted that despite challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
He said that both Obi and Atiku failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared president and that only Tinubu met the criteria by scoring 8.79 million votes and having one-quarter of all the votes cast in all 29 states of the federation.
The minister added, “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.”
Mohammed refuted the opposition party’s allegations of fraud and called for the cancellation of the election and the constitution of an interim government.
He stated that the 2023 election was the fairest and most credible in the history of Nigeria, following the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS).
The minister emphasised that he was in Washington DC to refute the unfavourable accounts of the election being spread by sceptics and the opposition.
According to him, the opposition party, having lost the election, was alleging fraud and calling for its cancellation and the constitution of the interim government.
Mohammed said, “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.”
