3 hours ago
1
Former Minister of Information and National Orientation, Lai Mohammed, has declared that ex-Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, would not have become president even if he had polled 10 million votes.
Mohammed said that, contrary to widespread perception, Obi was not rigged out of the 2023 presidential election, stressing that he did not constitute a headache during the election.
Featuring on Edmund Obilo’s podcast, State Affairs, the immediate past minister recalled how he and his team travelled abroad to educate the international community that Obi never won the election.
He said: “Even if Peter Obi had won 10 million votes, he could not have become president.
“After the election, its legitimacy was being questioned, if you remember. As a matter of fact, the Labour Party, if you go to social media in 2023, you would feel it won the election; they were everywhere on social media.
“And they did not win the election. Unfortunately, the perception out there was that they won and were rigged out. They did not win and were not rigged out.
“I took it upon myself and my team to meet think tanks in the US, UK, and international media, and we explained to them why Peter Obi could not have won the presidential election.
“The constitution of Nigeria is very clear: you need two requirements to win the presidential election. First, you must have scored the highest number of votes; second, you must also have scored at least one-quarter of the votes cast in two-thirds of the states.
“The results are there: Obi did not come first, he did not even come second; he came a close third to Atiku.
“However, he scored one-quarter of the votes cast in 15 states, Atiku scored one-quarter of the votes cast in 21 states, and only Asiwaju had the majority of votes and one-quarter of votes cast in 29 states of the federation.
“Obi was not the biggest headache, and I think that if he had stayed with Atiku, PDP would have won.”
