The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has come hard on the Federal Government of Nigeria over allegations that he was planning an insurrection, describing the claims as not only malicious but fictitious.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Mr. Lai Mohammed who is who spoke in Washington DC during his official engagements with some international media organisations, had accused Obi and his running mate, Baba Datti-Ahmed of inciting the citizens to revolt against the announcement of Ahmed Bola Tinubu as president-elect. He described their action as treasonable.
‘Obi and Datti-Ahmed cannot be threatening Nigerians that if Tinubu of 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 a democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins election,’ he said.
The minister wrote off the decision of Obi and Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to challenge the outcome of the February 25 presidential poll as a waste of effort and time because 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 votes 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 votes cast in 29 states of the federation.’
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The minister, who is in Washington to engage with international media organisations and think-tanks on the just-concluded 2023 polls, had so far met with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine.
During the respective interactions with the media organisations, he said it was wrong for Obi in one breadth to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in other breadth incite people to violence.
He said Atiku who came second with 6.9 million votes was only able to make one quarter of votes cast in 21 states while Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of votes cast in 15 states.
‘You cannot win election in a poll where you came a distant third position and failed to meet constitutional requirements. Obi, while complaining of fraud has not disowned his victory in Lagos,’ he said.
The minister said he undertook the mission to the US to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition on the election.
He said the opposition, having lost in the election were alleging fraud, calling for its cancellation and constitution of an interim government.
‘We have come here to balance that skewed narratives and to tell the world unambiguously that the just concluded general election 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 Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS) which I regard as a game changer. BVAS technology had helped to weed out ghost and illegal voters, eliminate multiple voting and return sanity to the elections.’
He claimed that during the election, BVAS functioned 97 percent giving unparalleled credibility to the elections. But he attributed delayed by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload results to its portal to suspected cyber attacks during the presidential poll. He said the allegation of fraud being bandied by the opposition was a result of ignorance of how the process works, arguing that the commission ‘withheld’ the upload ‘to preserve the integrity of the data’.
He said: ‘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.
“What happened on February 25 was that INEC observed that the results of the presidential election 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.’
The minister said President Muhammadu Buhari has delivered on his pledge to leave behind a legacy of free, fair and credible elections.
Reacting in his official twitter handle, Obi said he has never discussed or encouraged anyone to undermine the country and has never sponsored or preached any action against the Nigerian state.
He said while he was sad reading the comment of the minister, he was not perturbed by the minister bandying around the word ‘treason’ because, as far as he (Obi) was concerned, he had taken the legal route towards the recovery of his mandate and he remained committed to that.
‘Any person seeing treason in a clear legal process should explain to Nigerians how opting for the tribunal by myself and my deputy amounts to treason.
‘In the past few days, I’ve observed various campaigns of calumny directed at my person, the latest being allegations attributed to the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, in Washington DC. It is most unfortunate that these consistent efforts to portray me in a manner quite contrary to what I am and my core values are coming from such high quarters.
‘Mohammedaccusing me of stoking the fire of insurrection is totally fictitious and malicious. I have never advocated or encouraged anyone to undermine the Nigerian state; I’ve never sponsored or preached any action against the Nigerian state.’
Regretting what he described as ‘recklessness’ by some Nigerians, Obi said it was utterly perplexing that a minister would be busy travelling round the world telling Nigerians that the purpose was to tell the world the true story of the Nigerian elections.
The Labour Party flag-bearer said it was laughable, against the background of the fact that most of those countries sent their people to monitor the election and have all received reports from the monitors as well as from their embassies.
Obi asked: ‘Between Mohammed and their monitors/embassies, who would these countries believe?’
He further said such reckless behaviour sponsored with tax payers money was among the reasons those countries often do not take Nigeria seriously.
‘The billions spent on those meaningless trips would be enough to fix several dilapidated schools in the country,’ Obi said.
While urging Nigerians to always remain law-abiding and hopeful for the coming of the new Nigeria, Obi reinstated his steadfast inclination: ‘I’m on record, as always, advocating peace and issue-based campaign, not a campaign based on ethnicity or religion. I’m committed to due process and presently seeking redress in court. I urge those engaged in this de-marketing process to stop presenting Nigeria in such bad light. Our future generations deserve a new Nigeria where they can live a secure and decent life, like their counterparts in other climes. And this is possible.