The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says President Muhammadu Buhari has delivered on his pledge to leave behind a legacy of free, fair and credible elections.
Lai Mohammed said this while speaking with international media organizations in Washington DC on Monday.
He said Buhari ensured that the sanctity of constitutional term limits was maintained through a credible election process that allowed Nigerians to elect leaders of their choice.
Recalled that Buhari during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) in September 2022, promised to stay committed to the “sanctity of constitutional term limits” by leaving “a process of credible elections through which Nigerians elect leaders of their choice”.
Speaking during the interview, Lai said in fulfillment of this promise, the president ensured nobody used security agencies to rig the elections.
The minister said Buhari created a level-playing ground for the elections to take place, which was evident in the fact that his party lost the presidential election in his home state of Katsina, while the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost in his state, Lagos.
“Proof of this resolution is that the president’s party lost the presidential election in Katsina, his home state. Equally, the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost in his state, Lagos, while the chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, lost in Nasarawa state to the Labour Party,” Lai was quoted as saying.
“The director-general of the campaign organization of our party also lost to PDP in Plateau state. Nothing gives this election more credence than those facts because there was no rigging in states where our bigwigs come from.”
Mohammed said the allegation of fraud being bandied by the opposition is a result of ignorance of how the process works.
“Under our laws today, management of election results is manual and the court has ruled that INEC has the exclusive right to determine the mode of election, its collation, and transmission,” he said.
“What happened on the 25th of February was that INEC observed that the results of the presidential elections were not being viewed. INEC, suspecting a cyber attack, withheld the uploading of the results to preserve the integrity of the data.
“It immediately proceeded to float an alternative platform while asking its technicians to investigate what happened to its original portal.”
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