FG warns Peter Obi against ‘inviting insurrection’ in Nigeria

The Federal Government has warned the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against causing an uprising in Nigeria over the outcome of the 2023 presidential elections.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this in Washington DC, during his official engagements with some international media organisations on the just concluded 2023 polls.

Mohammed said Obi and his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed claimed that Nigeria’s democracy will come to an end if Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, is inaugurated on Monday, May 29.

“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,” Mohammed said

The minister added that Obi is trying to incite an uprising in the country, adding that the Labour Party candidate is not the democrat that he claimed to be.

“This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing,” Mohammed said.

“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.”

Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, won the presidential election. He polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat fellow contender Atiku who had 6,984,520 votes, and Obi of Labour Party had 6,101,533 votes.

Atiku and Obi have since rejected the election result and announced their intent to challenge the conduct of the election in court, citing alleged rigging and manipulation by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to favour Tinubu and the APC.

The minister noted that, despite challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

He added that both Obi and Atiku failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared president and noted that only Tinubu met the criteria by scoring 8.79 million votes and having one-quarter of all the votes cast in all 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.”

Mohammed noted that he was there to refute the unfavourable accounts of the election being spread by sceptics and the opposition.

According to the minister, the opposition party, having lost the election, was alleging fraud and calling for its cancellation and the constitution of the interim government.

He added that the 2023 election is the fairest and most credible following the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS).

“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,” Mohammed said.