Peter Okoye, PBA Journalism MenteeThe Nigerian Government has accused the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, of provoking people to violence over the outcome of the just concluded presidential elections.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed during his official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington (DC), said it was wrong for Obi, who seeks redress in court over the outcome of the polls to also provoke people to violence.
The minister is in Washington to engage with international media organisations and Think-tanks on the just concluded 2023 polls.
It added that the minister had so far engaged with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine respectively.
“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,” the minister claimed.
“Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person, he is not the democrat that he claimed to be.
“A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins the election,” he said.
He argued that there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in their challenge of the outcome of the election.
He added that both Obi and Atiku 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 get 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,” he said.
The minister maintained that there was no way Atiku came second with 6.9 million votes and was only able to make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states.
Also, Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of the votes cast in 15 states can be declared the winner.
“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.
Mohammed stated that he has come to the U.S. to correct the negative narratives being promoted by pessimists and opposition on the election.
He added that the opposition, having lost in the election attributed it to alleged fraud, calling for its cancellation and the constitution of the interim government.
“We have come here to balance that skewed narratives and to tell the world unambiguously that the just concluded general elections in Nigeria are 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.
“BVAS technology had helped to weed out ghost and illegal voters, eliminate multiple voting and return sanity to the elections,” he added
The minister insisted that the BVAS performed incredibly well according to INEC’s report during the polls, which gave 97 per cent credibility to the elections.
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