The president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has asked security forces to caution Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi about inflammatory remarks.
Tinubu, who was declared president-elect in the February 25 election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), also urged the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to sanction broadcast stations in the country that gave Obi, his main rival in the recently concluded election, undue access.
Tinubu stated in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday night by his campaign council’s Director, Media, and Publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, that Obi’s remarks could inspire violence and undermine a free and fair election.
Remember that Obi, who finished third in the poll, and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who finished second, are both suing over the February 25 election results.
As a result, Tinubu believes Obi’s “criminally false and inflammatory claims about the election” were designed to persuade the court to annul the election so that Obi and Atiku could campaign together in a new election.
The president-elect said; “the defeated Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi still goes around inflaming passions, spreading lies as if he is still campaigning for the highest office in the land, weeks after the exercise was concluded and a winner announced.”
“We are worried about his recent media rounds on Arise TV and Channels TV, in which he made profoundly misleading, criminally false, and inciting statements about the election that he lost woefully.”
“We call on the security agencies to caution him from further making incendiary remarks, especially after he claimed he is challenging the results of the election in the tribunal.”
“Asked on Arise TV about his loss, he derided the election, considered by many to be the best in our recent history. He described it recklessly as ‘probably the worst’, ‘wrong election’, and ‘not God’s will’.” In one moment, he likened the election to ‘robbery’.
“He also fleetingly wore the toga of a political scientist redefining democracy, which the world knows as the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
According to Obi, “to win in democracy is to win the people. The declared winner, Bola Tinubu did not win- that is what we are challenging…’ Later, he clarified in his moments of sobriety, after leaving the studio, that what he wanted to challenge was declaring the winner.
“On Channels TV a few days later, Obi made the ridiculous claim about ‘his stolen mandate’, echoing the position of his unthinking mob of supporters, who believe that he won the election because some sponsored polls claimed before the election.”
“We consider the claim by the former governor of Anambra as very fraudulent as he fell short of winning any mandate. He came third, not even second, losing by 2.6 million votes to President-elect Bola Tinubu, despite getting outrageously padded votes from his ethnic South East states.”
“From the false narrative Obi has been pushing, he is the one trying to steal Bola Tinubu’s mandate, by appealing unashamedly to tribal and religious sentiments and by resorting to his sickening penchant for lying bold-facedly to snatch what does not belong to him.”
