The minister of information, Lai Mohammed says Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the February 25 presidential poll.
Mohammed said this in Washington DC, during his official engagements with some international media organisations on the 2023 general election.
“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, but he must also have scored one-quarter of votes cast in at least 25 states,” the minister explained.
“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.”
The minister argued that Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party who came second with 6.9 million votes, could only make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states while Obi came third with 5.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of the votes in 15 states.
“You cannot win an 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,” he added.
He, therefore, accused Obi of committing treason by inciting Nigerians to violence over the outcome of the presidential 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,” the minister said.
“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 election.”
