2023 PRESIDENCY : "OBI TRYING TO ‘STEAL’ TINUBU’S MANDATE" - APC CRIES OUT

The All Progressives Congress (APC) says Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, is “trying to steal” Bola Tinubu’s mandate as the president-elect. On Monday, the LP candidate said he was challenging the process leading to the declaration of Tinubu as the president-elect.

He had also refuted claims that he was planning to hold an ‘end INEC’, ‘end Nigeria’ protest in the country.

Tinubu was on March 11, declared the winner of the February 25 presidential election. 

In a statement on Friday, Bayo Onanuga, director, media, and publicity of the APC campaign council, said Obi is “pushing a false narrative”. Onanuga said the LP candidate is “appealing to tribal and religious sentiments” without shame. He added that Obi’s statements are “a contempt of court” — seeking justice in court and still “embarking on a mission of intimidating the judiciary”

Onanuga said the party is worried about the “misleading, criminally false, and inciting statements” by the LP candidate.

“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,” the statement reads. 

“We are worried about his recent media rounds in which he made profoundly misleading, criminally false, and inciting statements about the election that he lost woefully.

“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.

“We consider Obi’s TV statements as prejudicial to the case he has filed and contemptuous of the court.” The party spokesperson called on security agencies to call the former Anambra governor to order. 

“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,” he said. 

“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.”