Presidential poll: Obasanjo’s call for election cancellation provocative – FG
The Federal Government has described the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s call for the 2023 general elections as self-serving and provocative.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this, in a statement by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi.
Mohammed urged the former president not to truncate the elections with “his inciting, self-serving and provocative letter on the elections.”
He said the former President’s call that President Muhammadu Buhari should prevail on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, to stop the election result collation process and rectify the allegations raised against INEC from many quarters was nothing but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process.
Recall that the opposition parties — the Labour Party, and the Peoples Democratic Party, had accused INEC of complicity in alleged malpractices during the polls.
The minister expressed shock and disbelief that a former President could throw around unverified claims and amplify wild allegations picked up from the street against the electoral process.
”Though masquerading as an unbiased and concerned elder statesman, former President Obasanjo is in reality a known partisan who is bent on thwarting, by subterfuge, the choice of millions of Nigerian voters,” he said.
Mohammed alleged that Obasanjo, in his time, “organised perhaps the worst election since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, hence he is the least qualified to advise a President whose determined effort to leave a legacy of free, fair, credible and transparent election is well acknowledged within and outside Nigeria.”
He said, ”As the whole nation waits with bated breath for the result of last Saturday’s national elections, amid unnecessary tension created by professional complainants and political jesters, what is expected from a self-respecting elder statesman are words and actions that douse tension and serve as a soothing balm.
”Instead, former President Obasanjo used his unsolicited letter to insinuate, or perhaps wish for, an inconclusive election and a descent into anarchy; used his time to cast aspersions on electoral officials who are unable to defend themselves, while surreptitiously seeking to dress his personal choice in the garb of the people’s choice. This is duplicitous.” Vanguard
