The Federal Government has cautioned Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, against sparking any political sedition or violence among Nigerians over their loss at the Presidential polls.
Mohammed issued the warning from Washington DC, where he is meeting with some international media organizations and intellectuals over the just concluded 2023 general elections. During the respective interactions with the media organizations, the minister said it was wrong for Obi in try to seek justice in court while trying to take laws into his hands by inciting political violence over the same issue.
“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 the democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins the election,” he said.
Mohammed said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Atiku Abubakar, the PDP Presidential candidate, as they both failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared as president.
He 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, 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.
“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.”
The minister further spoke on his mission to the U.S., saying he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by blind critics and hateful opposers, slamming the electoral process. He stated that opposition parties are now trying to cover over their failure by alleging corruption to the election, calling for its cancellation and constitution of the interim government.
Debunking the allegations, Mohammed said: “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 fairest and credible because of the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS) which I regard as a game changer.”
