Tinubu accuses Peter Obi of making inciting comments and trying to steal his mandate

The declared winner of the February 25 presidential election, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, of inciting the public with his post-election comments and trying to steal his mandate as the president-elect.

This is as he asked the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to caution television stations against granting access to Obi to delegitimize the presidential election.

This was made known in a statement issued on Friday night on behalf of Tinubu by the Director, Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential campaign council, Bayo Onanuga, who accused Peter Obi of going about inflaming passions and spreading lies.

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Peter Obi making false, misleading comments

Onanuga stated, “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 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 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 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 bold-facedly to snatch what does not belong to him.’’

Obi’s statements prejudicial

He added,

“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”.

For catch up

Recall that on March 1, 2023, INEC declared the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
The Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in his pronouncement said that the former Lagos state governor polled a total vote of 8,794,726 to defeat his closest rival and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who scored 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of Labour party who polled 6,101,533 votes.
The presidential candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso came a distant fourth with a total vote of 1,496,687 votes.
However, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, in separate press conferences rejected the results of the election and the collation process, saying that they won the election. They have both headed to the court to seek legal redress.
Peter Obi in an earlier interview said that he is challenging the process that led to the declaration of the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
He later made a U-turn in a tweet posted to his verified Twitter handle, saying he is at the tribunal to challenge both the process and the outcome.
He had also refuted claims that he was planning to hold an ‘end INEC’, ‘end Nigeria’ protest in the country, accusing the opposition of orchestrating such fake reports.