The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, risked being prosecuted for treason over some of their utterances on the February 25 presidential election.
Mohammed, who gave the warning in Washington, United States on Tuesday, said Obi and Baba-Ahmed’s statements amounted to insurrection.
He added that Obi and his running mate were inciting people to violence over the outcome of the poll.
But the LP candidate and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) refuted the allegations, describing them as reckless.
The PDP and the LP warned the FG against toying with the idea of arresting the ex-governor of Anambra State.
Since the All Progressives Congress candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was declared as the president-elect, having polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and Obi, who got 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes, respectively, the LP candidate and his running mate have been faulting the electoral process.
Despite filing petitions challenging the election result at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Obi and Baba-Ahmed have insisted on the cancellation of the poll which they claimed was characterised by rigging and violence.
In a recent interview on national television, Baba-Ahmed asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria not to swear in the President-elect on May 29 while some of their supporters had called for the interim national government.
But addressing some media organisations and think tanks on the election at the US capital, the minister said it was wrong for Obi to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in another breath incite people to violence.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, Mohammed stated, “Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress 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.”
The minister said in challenging the election result, there was no pathway to victory for either Obi or Atiku.
According to the minister, both Obi and Atiku 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 have the plurality of votes cast in an election, but he must also have scored one-quarter of the votes cast in at least 25 states.
“Only the president-elect met the criteria by scoring 8.79m votes and having one-quarter of all the votes cast in 29 states of the federation,” he further stated.
The minister said Atiku who came second with 6.9m votes was only able to make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states, adding that Obi came third with 6.1m votes but won only one-quarter of votes cast in 15 states.
“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,” he said.
Elaborating on his mission to the US, the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition about the election.
He said the opposition, having lost in the election, was alleging fraud, calling for its cancellation and constitution of the interim government.
“We have come here to balance the skewed narratives and to tell the world unambiguously that the just concluded general elections in Nigeria are the fairest, most transparent and authentic in the history of Nigeria.
“The election is the fairest and most credible because of the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Verification System, which I regard as a game-changer. BVAS technology had helped weed out ghost and illegal voters, eliminate multiple voting and return sanity to the elections,’’ he told his audience.
The minister defended the BVAS, which he said functioned 97 per cent giving unparalleled credibility to the elections.
But in response to the minister’s reprimand, Obi warned the FG to desist from making false allegations against him, stating that he had never sponsored or encouraged anybody to stoke the ember of insurrection in the country.
Obi, who tweeted via his official Twitter handle, said, “In the past few days, I have observed various campaigns of calumny directed at my person, with the latest being allegations attributed to the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, from Washington DC.
“It is most unfortunate that this consistent effort to portray me quite contrary to what I am, and my core values, is coming from such high quarters. Minister Lai accusing me of stoking insurrection is totally malicious and fictitious.
“I have never discussed or encouraged anyone to undermine the Nigerian state; I have never sponsored or preached any action against the Nigerian state. Those initiating these actions have increasingly used their official positions and agents to make false allegations against me.
“I am on record as always, advocating for peace and issue-based campaigns and never campaigned based on ethnicity or religion. I am committed to due process, and presently seeking redress in court.
“I urge those engaged in this demarketing process to stop presenting Nigeria in such a bad light. Our future generations deserve a new Nigeria, where they can live a secure and decent life like their counterparts in other climes. It is possible.”
(PUNCH)
