4th April, 2023
The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government said the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi has committed treason.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made the statement while speaking in Washington DC, with some international media organizations.
The Nigerian minister accused Obi of inciting people to violence over the outcome of the Presidential elections.
During the respective interactions with the media organizations, the minister said it was wrong for Obi in one breadth to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in another breadth incite people to violence.
“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.
“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 said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to the minister, both Obi and Atiku failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared as president.
Lai Mohammed said: “The constitution has stringent criteria for anybody who wants to be president of the country.
“Not only must he has the plurality of vote cast in an election, but 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 vote cast in 29 states of the federation.”
The minister said Atiku who came second with 6.9 million votes was only able to make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states.
He said Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of the votes cast in 15 states.
“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,” he said.
Elaborating on his mission to the U.S., the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition on the election.
He said oppositions, 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 most credible because of the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS) which I regard as a game changer.”
Relying on the INEC report, the minister said BVAS, during the polls, worked 97 percent giving unparalleled credibility to the elections.