President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime has admonished the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, to desist from inciting people to violence over the outcome of the presidential election, in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner.
Information minister Lai Mohammed gave the warning in Washington DC, during his official engagements with some international media organisations.
“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,” the minister said. “This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing.”
During the respective interactions with the media organisations, the minister said it was wrong for Mr Obi in one breadth to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and, in another breadth, inciting people to violence.
“Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person. He is not the democrat he claimed to be,” Mr Mohammed alleged. “A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins the election.”
The minister said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Mr Obi or Atiku Abubakar (PDP presidential candidate).
According to the minister, Messrs Obi and Abubakar failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared the election’s winner.
“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,” Mr Mohammed argued.
The minister said Mr Abubakar, who came second with 6.9 million votes, could only make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states.
He said Mr Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of the votes in 15 states.
“You cannot win an election in a poll where you came a distant third position and failed to meet constitutional requirements. Peter Obi, while complaining of fraud, has not disowned his victory in Lagos,” the minister stated.
Elaborating on his mission to the US, the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives promoted by naysayers and opposition on the election.
“The election is the most fair and credible because of the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS), which I regard as a game changer,” said Mr Mohammed.
The minister had engaged with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy.
In a recent televised comment, the Labour Party’s vice-presidential candidate urged Mr Buhari not to hand over to the president-elect, describing the potential handover as installing a coup plotter.
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