Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has warned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi against inciting violence over the outcome of the presidential elections.
Mohammed spoke in Washington DC, USA during his official engagements with some international media organisations on the just concluded 2023 polls.
The minister accused Obi of inciting people to violence while seeking redress in court over the outcome of the election.
“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,” NAN quoted him as saying.
“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.”
Speaking further, the minister said there was no possibility of victory for either Obi or the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar in their challenge of the election results, as 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,” he said.
“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.
“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 disowned his victory in Lagos.
Elaborating on his mission to the US, the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by the opposition in the election.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
