The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Pe­ter Obi, has described recent remarks by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, accusing him of treasonable charges and stoking insurrection in the country as malicious and fictitious.

Peter Obi, in a statement is­sued by his Media Adviser, Dr. Valentine Obienyem, said that opting for the tribunal to recover his mandate cannot amount to treason, warning political par­ty spokespersons to stop their de-marketing process, insisting that it is presenting Nigeria in a very bad light.

He said that he was not per­turbed by the minister bandy­ing around the word “treason” because, as far as he (Obi) was concerned, he had taken the le­gal route towards the recovery of his mandate and that he re­mained committed to that.

“Any person ‘seeing’ treason in a clear legal process should explain to Nigerians how opting for the tribunal by myself and my deputy amounts to treason,” Obi said.

In the statement, he said, “In the past few days, I’ve observed various campaigns of calumny directed at my person, the latest being allegations attributed to Information Minister, Lai Mo­hammed, from Washington DC.

“I have never discussed or en­couraged anyone to undermine the Nigerian state; I’ve 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’m on record as always advocating peace and issue-based campaigns and not campaigning based on ethnicity or religion.

“I’m committed to due pro­cess and I am presently seeking redress in court. I urge those en­gaged in this de-marketing 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”.

The LP standard bearer re­gretted that “it is most unfortu­nate that these consistent efforts to portray me quite contrary to what I am and my core values, is coming from such high quar­ters”.

Lai Mohammed had during interactions with some media organisations in the US said it was wrong for Obi in one breath to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in an­other breath inciting people to violence.

He said, “Obi and his vice, Datti 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”.

Minister On Familiarisation Tour To Misinform Int’l Community — LP

Again, the Labour Party on Tuesday rebuked the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, over anti-Peter Obi comments in which he accused the LP presidential candidate in the 2023 elections “of inciting people to violence”.

Julius Abure, National Chairman of Labour Party, also lambasted the minister for em­barking on what he described as “a familiarisation tour of misinforming the international community of the true political situation in Nigeria”.

In a statement in Abuja, in response to Lai Mohammed’s comments during the latter’s official engagements with some international media organisations in Washington DC, Abure said that the min­ister’s comment was done in bad faith.

The LP national chairman warned the minister to desist from such utterances.

He said, “It is our considered opinion that it is even the APC through their spokespersons and all others who have been engaged in provocative utter­ances in order to cause chaos that should be admonished. The admonition is largely for APC themselves, their spokespersons and their officials”.

“The Minister of Informa­tion and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mo­hammed, who was on a familia­risation tour of misinforming the international community of the true political situation in Nigeria yesterday during his official engagements with some international media organisa­tions in Washington DC admon­ished Mr. Obi for whipping up sentiments across Nigeria.

“The minister who engaged respectively with the Washing­ton Post, Voice of America, Asso­ciated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine said it was wrong for Obi in one breath to seek redress in court over the outcome of the polls and in another breath incit­ing people to violence.

“Let me state categorically that there are no bases for that admonition. Our presidential candidate is a peaceful and law abiding person”, he said.

Abure insisted that even though “the election was provoc­atively rigged”, Obi chose to be peaceful and toe the part of justice “in spite of all pressures from our supporters to move into the streets to protest the outcome of the general election and to reclaim the mandate free­ly given to our candidate by the people, he has decided to calm the nerves in order to give the judicial process a chance”.

The LP chairman claimed further “that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party is the only candidate whose campaign was issues based.

“In spite of all provocation, it was the Labour Party and its candidate that was attacked in Lagos, in Port Harcourt and all other states in the federation. But we have continued to pro­mote peace”.

Lai Mohammed also said in challenging the election results, there was no pathway to victo­ry for either Obi or Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential can­didate of the Peoples Democrat­ic Party (PDP).

According to him, neither Obi nor Atiku met 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 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 votes cast in 29 states of the federation,” he said.

The minister said Atiku who came second with 6.9 mil­lion votes was only able to make one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states.

He claimed Obi came third with 6.8 million votes but won only one-quarter of votes cast in 15 states, adding that “you cannot win an election in a poll where you came to a dis­tant third position and failed to meet constitutional require­ments”.

Lai Mohammed also under­scored that President Muham­madu Buhari has delivered on his pledge to leave behind a legacy of free, fair and credible elections.

Buhari, in his speech at the United Nations General Assem­bly (UNGA77) in September 2022, promised to stay commit­ted to the “sanctity of constitu­tional term limits” by leaving “a process of credible elections through which Nigerians elect leaders of their choice”.

This promise Lai Moham­med said he has kept by ensur­ing nobody used security agen­cies to rig the elections.

The minister said Buhari created a level-playing ground for the elections to take place.

“Proof of this resolution is that the president’s party lost the presidential election in Katsina, his home state. Equally, the pres­ident-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost in his state, Lagos, while the chairman of the party, Abdul­lahi Adamu, lost in Nasarawa State to the Labour Party,” Lai was quoted as saying.

“The director-general of the campaign organisation of our party also lost to PDP in Plateau State. Nothing gives this election more credence than those facts because there was no rigging in states where our bigwigs come from.”

He added that the allegation of fraud being suggested by the opposition is a result of igno­rance of how the process works.

“Under our laws today, man­agement of election results is manual and the court has ruled that INEC has the exclusive right to determine the mode of election, its collation and trans­mission,” he said.

“What happened on the 25th of February was that INEC observed that the results of the presidential elections were not being viewed. INEC, suspecting a cyber-attack, withheld the up­loading of the results to preserve the integrity of the data.

It immediately proceeded to float an alternative platform while asking its technicians to investigate what happened to its original portal.”