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’, ‘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 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 the process of declaring the winner.
On Channels TV 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 made the claim 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 boldfacedly to snatch what does not belong to him.
We consider Obi’s TV statements as prejudicial to the case he has filed and contemptuous of the court. Only a desperate politician like Obi will embark on his course of action: seeking justice in court and simultaneously embarking on a mission of blackmailing and intimidating the judiciary.
He is trying to present himself before his case takes off in court as a helpless, cheated victim of the ‘system’, robbed of a mandate by INEC. He is trying to position himself as the candidate ‘who won the people’, who is loved by the people, going by his self-serving definition of democracy.
His antics, if he is able to sway the judges is to make them cancel the entire election, even without sufficient, substantial proof of malpractice. This will pave way for his dream alliance with the PDP, the second losing party, in a fresh election.
The PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar spoke about his readiness to enter into such alliance in his post-poll press conference, as he accused Obi of taking his votes in the South South and South East.
We hope the men and women of the judiciary will not fall for Obi’s cheap tactics and really examine the cases before them on merit and on the basis of substantial evidence presented.
Let us remind Obi once again, he is welcome in the court,, where he is bound to lose woefully.
Finally we advise Mr. Obi to stop attacking the integrity of the election just because he did not win the majority votes and the constitutional spread in 24 states.
He should stop deceiving his gullible followers and raising unrealistic hopes about reclaiming the presidency from Asiwaju Tinubu.
We also advise the NBC to caution TV houses giving Obi the platform to de-legitimise a free and fair election, when he has taken his case to court.
Bayo Onanuga
Director, Media and Publicity
APC Presidential Campaign Council
March 16, 2023
