Posted by The Federal Government (FG) stated on Tuesday that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), and Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate, ran the risk of facing treason charges due to their statements regarding the presidential election on February 25.
The warning was delivered on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. by Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture. He claimed that Obi and Baba-Ahmed’s statements amounted to insurrection and that they were inciting riots due to the election’s results.
The LP candidate and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who swiftly denied the accusations and characterized them as reckless, cautioned the FG against considering the possibility of detaining the former governor of Anambra State.
According to WE, the LP candidate and his running mate have been criticizing the electoral process since Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared the winner after receiving 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar and Obi, who received 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes, respectively, for the PDP.
In addition, Obi and Baba-Ahmed have steadfastly demanded the annulment of the election despite submitting petitions at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal contesting the outcomes of the vote they claimed was marred by violence and vote rigging.
Recall that in a recent interview with national television, Baba-Ahmed urged Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola to postpone the inauguration of the president-elect on May 29 while some of their supporters demanded the establishment of an interim national government.
In the most recent development, Mohammed claimed that it was improper for Obi to seek redress in court over the election’s results and then incite violence in the next breath while speaking to some media organizations and think tanks in the US capital about the election.
The minister declared.
“Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed cannot warn Nigerians that the country’s democracy will end if Bola Tinubu, the president-elect of the All Progressives Congress, takes office on May 29.
This is treason. You can’t encourage rebellion, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Obi is not the Democrat he claimed to be, and his statement comes from a desperate person. A democrat shouldn’t just hold onto his belief in democracy until after the election. “.
He claimed that neither Obi nor Atiku had a chance to win if the election results were challenged because they fell short of the constitutional requirements for being recognized as the president.
“The constitution has strict requirements for anyone who wants to be the president of the nation. He must receive one-fourth of the votes cast in at least 25 states in addition to receiving the majority of the votes cast in an election.
Only the president-elect, who received 8.79m votes and received 25% of the votes cast in all 29 states of the federation, was able to meet the requirements, according to Mohammed.
The minister claimed that Obi, who finished third with 6.1m votes, won only one-quarter of the votes cast in 15 states, while Atiku, who finished in second place with 6.9m votes, was only able to win one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states.
In a poll where you finished in a distant third place and didn’t meet the requirements set forth by the constitution, you cannot win an election.
Despite complaining of fraud, “Peter Obi has not disowned his victory in Lagos,” he claimed.