Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture, argues it is unjustified to demand for his arrest and prosecution for criticizing Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, for inciting the public to violence.
The minister made this statement on Wednesday in London in response to Elder Statesman and Pan Niger Delta Forum leader Chief Edwin Clark’s demand that he be detained and charged with disseminating “fake news” against Obi.
Mohammed insisted that his counsel to Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, was never founded on untruth and that he stuck by it.
“What will be my offence? Is it by chiding vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party who said on live television that if the President-elect Bola Tinubu is sworn-in on May 29 that that would be the end of democracy in Nigeria?
“Is it for chiding him for saying that swearing in Tinubu on May 29 is like swearing in the military?
“What is the fake news in that?” the minister queried.
He said Baba-Ahmed had never denied his statement made on the live television
Mohammed also said that Obi had also not publicly called his running mate to order over the treasonable utterances.
“The position of the law is clear that anybody who is aggrieved over election results should go to court
“It is not to start threatening Nigerians and heating up the polity simply because you lost an election,” he said.
Mohammed stressed that the APC won the presidential election “fair and square” and INEC was right in declaring Tinubu the winner.
He reassured Nigerians and the international community that the president-elect would be sworn in on May 29.