FG to Obi, Datti: You’re committing treason by inciting Nigerians

The Federal Government has warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, from inciting people to violence over the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, gave the warning during his official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington DC, United States.

Mohammed is in Washington DC to engage with international media organisations and Think-tanks on the just-concluded 2023 polls.

The minister had so far engaged with Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press, and Foreign Policy Magazine.

During his interactions with the media organisations, the minister said it was wrong for Obi in one breadth to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in other breadth inciting people to violence.

He said: “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.”

Mohammed said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, adding that the two candidates failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared as president.

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“The constitution has stringent criteria for any body who want to be president of the country.

“Not only must he has the plurality of vote 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 vote cast in 29 states of the federation,” he said.

The minister said Atiku who came second with 6.9 million votes was only able to make one quarter of votes cast in 21 states.

He said 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.

“Peter Obi, while complaining of fraud has not disown his victory in Lagos,” Mohammed added.

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 the opposition, having lost in the election were alleging fraud, calling for its cancellation and constitution of 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 is the fairest, most transparent and authentic in the history of Nigeria.

“The election is the most fair 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,” Mohammed stressed.

The minister added that BVAS, during the polls, worked 97 per cent giving unparalleled credibility to the elections.

The Star