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• Minister guilty of provocative utterances to cause chaos -LP
By Chinelo Obogo and Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has slammed the Federal Government over allegations that he was planning an insurrection, describing the claims as malicious and fictitious.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, 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 dismissed the decision of Obi and Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of 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.”
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 disown 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 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 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.”
He claimed that during the election, BVAS functioned 97 per cent 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.
He said in fulfilment of the promise, Buhari ensured nobody used security agencies to rig the elections and created a level-playing field for the elections to take place.
“Proof of this resolution is that the president’s party lost the presidential election in Katsina, his home state. Equally, the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost in his state, Lagos, while the chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, lost in Nasarawa State to the Labour Party.
“The director general of the campaign organisation of our party Governor Simon Lalong, also lost to PDP in Plateau State. Nothing gives this election more credence than those facts because there was no rigging in states where our bigwigs come from.”
• Treason allegations, other attacks denting Nigeria’s image
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.”
•Minister on familiarisation tour of misinformation –LP
Also reacting, Julius Abure, National Chairman of Labour Party (LP), said the minister admonished the party’s candidate in ‘bad faith’ before the international media.
He accused him of engaging in provocative utterances to cause chaos.
” Abure said: “My attention has been drawn to a media report accredited to the Minister of Information and culture, Lai Muhammed, to the effect that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, is inciting people to violence,.
“Mohammed ,who was on a familiarisation tour of misinforming the international community of the true political situation in Nigeria yesterday during his official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington DC, admonished Obi for whipping up sentiments across Nigeria.
“The minister who engaged respectively with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine said it was wrong for Obi on one breadth to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and on another breadth inciting people to violence.
“Let me state categorically that there are no basis for that admonition. Our presidential candidate is a peaceful and law-abiding person. Despite the fact that the election was provocatively rigged, he decided to be peaceful and toe the part of justice.
“In spite of all pressures from our supporters to move into the street to protest the outcome of the general election and to reclaim the mandate freely given to our candidate by the people, he has decided to calm the nerves in order to give the judicial process a chance.
“The presidential candidate of the Labour Party is the only candidate whose campaign was issues based. In spite of all provocation, it was the Labour Party and its candidate that was attacked in Lagos, in Port Harcourt and all other states in the federation. But we have continued to promote peace.”
“Therefore, for the minister to be admonishing our presidential candidate was done in bad faith. We, therefore, caution the minister to desist from such utterances.
“It is our considered opinion that it is even the APC through its spokespersons and others who have been engaged in provocative utterances in order to cause chaos that should be admonished. The admonition is largely for APC, its spokespersons and officials.”
•Ensure democracy prevails, protesters tell US
Meanwhile, some Nigerians in the United States have staged a protest against the electoral victory of Tinubu.
In videos posted on social media on Monday, some persons were seen waving the Nigerian flag in front of the White House while others held the American flag in what appeared to be a call for solidarity.
Some of the protesters held placards with different messages — “Democracy under threat in Nigeria; Let Nigerian votes count and Nigerians reject the election results.”
A man, who identified himself as lawyer and polling unit officer in the presidential election, claimed BVAS machines were bypassed in the electoral process.
He attributed the low voters turnout to ethnic profiling, adding that the injustice suppressed democracy and was a crime against humanity.
“It was serious violence that I witnessed myself. They told people: You cannot vote because you look a certain way or you’re from a certain part of Nigeria. That is not what Nigeria is all about. That is now what democracy is all about. I can tell you now that it is a crime against humanity and I think United States should never stamp on this. We Nigerians in the United States should never stamp on this.
“I was doing some work trying to convince regular people to vote for Labour Party in Badagry West and they were telling me our votes never counted in the past, why should the votes count now? And I told them No, INEC said it has BVAS, and with that same BVAS it could transmit results electronically. I was wrong.
“On February 25, serving as a polling unit officer, I saw the BVAS was never used. Yes, they filled out the forms and everything but no transmission was done. None. Not in the Badagry West where I served as a polling unit officer,” the man said.
He added that the results from the presidential election were never uploaded and that INEC went ahead to declare a winner while there were still problems with results upload and transmission.
The protesters claimed Tinubu failed to meet the constitutional requirements and asked the US to do the ‘right’ thing and stand with Nigeria.
“Just like our vice presidential candidate said, there is no president elect. One of the most important things we have to realise is that the person who is elected president has to meet the constitutional requirements.
“We want the United States Congress to do the right thing — to make sure they stand with the majority of the Nigerian people and make sure democracy actually prevails in Nigeria.”
The US All Progressives Congress (APC) chapter has vowed to stage a counter-march in support of the president elect.
Source: SunNewsOnline | Read More
