The Nigerian Federal Government has issued a warning to Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, urging him not to incite violence over the outcome of the Presidential elections. This warning was given by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, during his official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington DC.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the minister is currently in Washington to engage with international media organisations and Think-tanks on the just concluded 2023 polls. He has so far engaged with the “Washington Post”, Voice of America, Associated Press, and Foreign Policy Magazine.
During these engagements, the minister expressed his displeasure with Obi’s statements, stating that it was wrong for him to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls while inciting people to violence. The minister described Obi’s statement as treasonous and an invitation to insurrection, which is unacceptable.
The minister further accused Obi of being desperate and not a true democrat, as he only believed in democracy when he won the election. He also stated that 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 minister clarified that the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), met the constitutional requirements by scoring 8.79 million votes and having one-quarter of all the vote cast in 29 states of the federation. In contrast, Atiku, who came second with 6.9 million votes, was only able to make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states. Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of votes cast in 15 states.
The minister stressed that Obi cannot win an election where he came a distant third position and failed to meet constitutional requirements. He further pointed out that Obi, while complaining of fraud, had not disowned his victory in Lagos.
The minister’s mission to the U.S. was to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition on the election. He aimed to balance the skewed narratives and tell the world unambiguously that the just concluded general elections in Nigeria were the fairest, most transparent, and authentic in the history of Nigeria. He attributed this fairness and credibility to the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS), which helped to weed out ghost and illegal voters, eliminate multiple voting and return sanity to the elections. The minister relied on the INEC report, stating that BVAS worked 97 per cent during the polls, providing unparalleled credibility to the elections.
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