The federal government of Nigeria, through its minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described recent criticism by opposition political figures, directed at President Muhammadu Buhari over his comment on the 2023 presidential elections as “shameless”, stressing that they are “sore losers”.
In a Press statement, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the president’s analysis of the reasons for the opposition’s loss in the 2023 elections is incontrovertible.
The statement which was made available to journalists in Abuja by the Special Assistant to the President (Media), in the Office of the Minister, Segun Adeyemi, described key opposition figures such as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party(LP) counterpart, Mr Peter Obi, as persons who relied on social media ratings rather than facing the political realities in order to mobilize support appropriately for the elections.
Lai Mohammed highlighted the point that the stance of President Buhari is anchored on a valid ground based on the fact that the opposition figures in the 2023 presidential election lost in the polls following “their overconfidence, complacency and bad tactical moves.”
He declared: “Opposition’s overconfidence going into the election stemmed in part from the blitzkrieg of social media propaganda as well as faulty and procured opinion polls.
“These were apparently meant to hoodwink their foreign backers and a section of the international media into uncritically reporting that they were coasting home to victory when they were indeed heading into the ravine of defeat.”
The minister who cautioned the opposition political actors including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar abd Peter Obi “to stop their endless griping over the polls which they lost”, maintained that Buhari deserves accolades and salutations for ensuring the conduct, supervision and delivery of ” the best election in Nigeria’s history.”
”President Muhammadu Buhari lived up to his billing by delivering a free, fair and credible election, and his legacy is assured.
“The President would rather lose his state and many of his party’s strongholds than tamper with the fidelity of the election, and that is why he provided a level-playing field for all parties,” he added.
According to the Minister, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress(APC) Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won the presidential election fair and square, with an overriding majority of the votes cast in the elections.
He added that the President-elect also surpassed the constitutionally stipulated 25 per cent of votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
He said: “Going by the results, none of the opposition parties met any of the conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election.
“They did not even come close, in spite of their pre-election grandstanding.
”They (opposition) keep leaning on some international observers to justify their fraudulent claim that the election was rigged.”
While attacking the opposition, the minister pointedly referred the opposition parties to the concise verdict arrived at by Ambassador Johnnie Carson, a United Ststes diplomat and one time Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, that the APC candidate “undoubtedly won the polls”.
Ambassador Carson, according to the minister, co-led the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) International Election Observation Mission to Nigeria.
Lai Mohammef added: “They also forgot that the African Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria said the atmosphere was generally calm and peaceful in 95 per cent of the polling units visited.
“It is on the strength of these reports that many nations, including the US and the UK, wasted no time in congratulating the victorious APC Presidential Candidate….The opposition’s insinuation that the failure to immediately upload the result of the
presidential election onto IReV affected the credibility of the election is a fraud.
“It is an act of blackmail and deceit by desperate individuals.
”The opposition Labour Party, in particular, will go down in the history books as the first-ever distant third-place finisher in a presidential election anywhere to have bold-facedly claimed victory.”
It would be recalled that there has been much controversy over both the conduct and outcome of the 2023 presidential elections won by APC’S Presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with opposition figures challenging the results in court. Among those who have since proceeded to the courts to challenge the validity of the election results include Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of Labour Party.
