* Accept defeat, stop grieving over 2023 election loss, FG tells opposition
* You’ve murdered sleep, will have no peace by rigging 2023 election, LP replies
With barely 28 days to the scheduled May 29 presidential inauguration, the verbal war between the federal government and major opposition political parties has continued as the federal government battles to defend the outcome of the presidential election, which has attracted much criticisms and condemnations from both the local and international observer groups that monitored the election.
While the presidential candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar’and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi and their political parties have challenged the declaration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinibu as president elect at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, president Mohammadu Buhari fired a salvo, when he attacked the opposition parties last week, accusing them of overconfidence and complacency as reasons they lost the elections.
Buhari, While playing host to governors of his APC at the presidential villa in Abuja, said while the ruling party was strategizing on how to retain the presidency and other positions, the opposition parties relaxed with full confidence without putting their houses in order for the purpose of winning the election.
The LP and PDP however wasted no time in responding to the president’s attack.
Responding to president Buhari’ s claim the Labour Party in a statement on issued by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, who described the president’s claim as faulty and i’ll advised, enumerated several reasons why opposition political parties lost the 2023 election;
“The first is that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC snubbed the electoral act wherein it failed to upload the result from the polling unit in real time as promised and in disregard to the laws guiding the election. The INEC by so doing, created room for that election to be rigged.
Ifoh who claimed that the current APC president elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not win the election, said election, particularly, the presidential election was manipulated and rigged beyond comprehension.
“So political parties didn’t loose election because of over confidence or complacency as proffered by Mr. President, APC in collaboration with the various government agencies simply rigged the election and rigged themselves into power.
“Let me remind Mr. President of the magnitude of violence, ballot snuffing, snatching and manipulations of result from the collation centres using security agencies, which included police, army amongst others as well as thugs to manipulate elections in favour of the ruling party.
“Recently, we saw the show of shame that took place in Adamawa. What played out in Adamawa was a microcosym of what played out in all over the states during February 25 and March 18 elections in Nigerian. Why the case of Adamawa was given huge publicity and attention was because of the involvement of an INEC National commissioner who was a victim, thus forcing INEC to take prompt action.
“From Lagos to Rivers, from north to southern parts of the country, all over, violence characterized that election. In most cases, some agents and supporters were not allowed access to the polling units.
“All of these put together, do they amount to over confidence and complacency on the part of the opposition parties? It shows that the President who promised Nigerians that he was going to give Nigerians a free, fair and credible election simply failed in his duty in giving Nigerians the election they deserved.”
Continuing, Ifoh described the 2023 general election as the worst election the country ever had since 1999 to date.
“The 2023 general election is the worst ever as reported by virtually all the international observers and communities. In fact, the election took Nigeria back to the days of First and Second republics where political thugs, where violence and thuggery characterized politics and election.”
Sustaining the verbal war, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Sunday, told the opposition parties to stop their griping over the 2023 presidential election and accept defeat over the election they lost woefully.Mohammed defended the president and his claim that both Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party lost the election due to overconfidence and complacency.The minister in a statement issued by his Special Assistant (Media), Segun Adeyemi, in Abuja, said, “Mr President’s analysis on the reasons for the opposition’s loss in the 2023 elections was incontrovertible.“President Buhari 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,” Mohammed added.He noted that the opposition’s overconfidence going into the election stemmed in part from the use 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.Lai Mohammed maintained that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola 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 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.”Reacting to the issue of IReV portal, Mohammed knocked the opposition for continuously seeking to mislead the world by clutching at the weak straw that results were not immediately uploaded onto the portal as if it has any role to play in the collation of results.He said, “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.”This is even as the LP has accused the federal government and ruling APC of murdering the sleep of Nigerians’ by allegedly rigging the 2023 elections in favour of the ruling partyLabour again in a swift response to the statement by Lai Mohammed, said, ” few days after President Muhammadu Buhari made that heavily flawed and erroneous remarks on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election where he claimed that the opposition parties lost the presidential election due to their “overconfidence, complacency and bad tactical moves”, it is hearth-wrenching to hear the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, still progressing with that warped, illogical and incongruous concept.“We would rather not join issues with a man who is famous for constantly prescribing doses of expired and ineffectual propaganda to Nigerians. His ill-fated and hugely failed trip to United Kingdom and United States where he attempted to redeem the grossly battered democratic credentials of this present administration; spending millions of tax payers money to defend an indefensible action is yet another tragedy of President Buhari’s 8 years leadership.”LP in the reaction issued by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, continued, “It is only the blind that will continue to insist that the 2023 presidential election which was massively rigged was free, fair and credible.“As we have said earlier, the opposition political parties lost the election because the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC jettisoned the electoral act, having not uploaded the result from the polling unit in real time as promised and in so doing, created room for riggers to have a field day. The election witnessed unprecedented magnitude of violence, ballot snuffing, snatching and manipulations of result from the collation centres using thugs, security agencies, which included police, army amongst others.“All these issues and a lot more were captured, well documented and have been taken to the appeal tribunal and the matters are on going. Mr. Lai Mohammed need not preempt the tribunal as his actions are contemptuous and could be used against him.“We just want the honourable Minister to know that by rigging the 2023 general election, himself, his party, All Progressives Congress and the leader of the party, President Buhari have murdered sleep and they do not deserve peace.”