The Federal Government has warned the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, not to incite people to violence over the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said this during his official engagements with some international media organisations on the just concluded general election, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
NAN reports that the minister has so far engaged with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine.
During the respective interactions with the media organisations, the minister 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.
“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.
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“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.
Mohammed said there was no possibility of victory for either Obi or his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in their challenge of the election results.
He emphasised that 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 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,” Mohammed said.
“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 U.S., the minister said he was there to correct the negative narratives being promoted by naysayers and opposition on 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 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,” Mohammed said.