How do we discredit 2023 Election Rigging Claims – Lai Mohammed

A former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has explained how the Ministry discredit negative narratives about the fraud of the 2023 presidential election.

Mohammed told this in a paper presentation at the spokesman summit which was declared open on Tuesday in Abuja by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris

In a copy of the presentation seen by journalists on Wednesday, former ministers remembering that right before leaving the office in 2023, the government of former President Muhammadu Buhari was faced with charges of changing the president’s poll.

He said the accusation was mostly centered around the delay in uploading results to the IREV Independent National Election Portal (Inec).

This, according to him, did not play a role in the official collection of election results.

Mohammed said the development was exacerbated by the wrong sentiment, driven by international media parts that rely on pre-electables of questionable and social media noise, showed that the Labor Party (LP) candidates had won the election.

In correcting negative narratives, Mohammed said his office chose the evidence -based approach given to local and foreign media organizations and influential Think Tank institutions

He said: “Our goal is to give them facts that cannot be denied about how the election is won and lost.

“We met with journalists and representatives from Voice of America, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy Magazine, Associated Press, BBC, The Economist, Reuters, Bloomberg, Politico, Hudson Institute, US Peace Institute, Atlantic Council, and Chatham House, among others.

“What surprised us was that many of these organizations were not familiar with Nigeria’s constitutional requirements to win the presidential election.

“We explain that, under chapter 6, part 134 of the constitution, a candidate not only has to win the majority of votes but also secures at least 25% of the votes in no less than two -thirds of 36 states and federal capital areas,” he said.

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“Based on this, we explain that both PDP and LP candidates do not have a decent path for victory.

“We presented damage: LP candidates placed the three far away, trailing APC candidates with around 2.7 million votes.

“APC candidates not only won the highest number of votes but also received 25 percent of the votes in 29 states – far above the constitutional threshold.

“PDP candidates, who came in second, met with a threshold of 25 percent in only 21 states, while LP candidates achieved it in only 15 countries. Both did not meet constitutional criteria for victory”.

To further eliminate accusations of fraud, former ministers said they gave strong evidence that APC lost in the main countries with a high number of registered voters – Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina – although all had the APC governor.

Mohammed added: “If APC has manipulated the process, why did he lose in his fort?

“We highlighted that the large APC figures lost their states in the presidential election: the party presidential candidate, the president who was sitting, the party leader, the director general of the campaign, and several APC governors all lost their state of origin.

“If the party is truly proficient in fraud, will it allow such a high profile defeat?”

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