By Correspondent in Abuja.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Minister of Information and Culture,
Photo credit: The Guardian Nigeria.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has
advised the opposition to stop their endless griping over the 2023
presidential election which they lost woefully, saying they know very well that they deserve to lose the election because of their
overconfidence and complacency.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has
advised the opposition to stop their endless griping over the 2023
presidential election which they lost woefully, saying they know very well that they deserve to lose the election because of their
overconfidence and complacency.
This is contained in a statement signed by Segun Adeyemi,Special Assistant to the President (Media)
Office of the Minister of Information and Culture
Abuja and a copy made available to The Reporters on Sunday.
Tthe Minister said Mr.President's analysis on the reasons for the opposition's loss in the
2023 elections was incontrovertible.
He said the President deserves nothing but accolades for delivering
undoubtedly the best election in Nigeria's history, adding that the
tempestuous but predictable reaction to the President's comments by
the opposition has shown them for what they are: shameless sore
losers.
''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,'' Alhaji
Mohammed said.
He said the 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, which 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 said the presidential candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won the presidential
election fair and square, clinching the majority of the votes cast and
surpassing the constitutionally-stipulated 25% of votes cast in each
of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the
Federal Capital Territory.
''Going by the results, none of the opposition parties met any of the
conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election. They
didn't 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. They
conveniently forgot what Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the revered US
diplomat who co-led the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and
International Republican Institute (IRI) International Election
Observation Mission to Nigeria said: that the APC candidate
undoubtedly won the polls.
''They also forgot that the African Union Election Observation Mission
to Nigeria said the atmosphere was generally calm and peaceful in 95%
of the polling units visited,'' he said, adding that 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.
Alhaji Mohammed slammed the opposition for continuously seeking to
mislead the world by clutching at the weak straw that results were not
immediately uploaded onto the IReV Portal, as if the portal has any
role to play in the collation of results.
''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,''
he said.
Office of the Minister of Information and Culture
Abuja and a copy made available to The Reporters on Sunday.
Tthe Minister said Mr.President's analysis on the reasons for the opposition's loss in the
2023 elections was incontrovertible.
He said the President deserves nothing but accolades for delivering
undoubtedly the best election in Nigeria's history, adding that the
tempestuous but predictable reaction to the President's comments by
the opposition has shown them for what they are: shameless sore
losers.
''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,'' Alhaji
Mohammed said.
He said the 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, which 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 said the presidential candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won the presidential
election fair and square, clinching the majority of the votes cast and
surpassing the constitutionally-stipulated 25% of votes cast in each
of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the
Federal Capital Territory.
''Going by the results, none of the opposition parties met any of the
conditions stipulated for winning the presidential election. They
didn't 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. They
conveniently forgot what Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the revered US
diplomat who co-led the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and
International Republican Institute (IRI) International Election
Observation Mission to Nigeria said: that the APC candidate
undoubtedly won the polls.
''They also forgot that the African Union Election Observation Mission
to Nigeria said the atmosphere was generally calm and peaceful in 95%
of the polling units visited,'' he said, adding that 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.
Alhaji Mohammed slammed the opposition for continuously seeking to
mislead the world by clutching at the weak straw that results were not
immediately uploaded onto the IReV Portal, as if the portal has any
role to play in the collation of results.
''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,''
he said.
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