Why 2023 election is credible — Lai Mohammed
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd,), has delivered on his pledge to leave behind a legacy of free, fair and credible elections through the conduct of 2023 polls.
Mohammed stated this in Washington DC during his official engagements with some international media organisations.
He added that Buhari lost his state, Katsina, during the presidential election to the Peoples Democratic Party and the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, also lost his state, Lagos, to the Labour Party, which was enough proof that the elections were credible.
The minister is in Washington to engage with international media organisations and think tanks on the just-concluded 2023 polls.
He has so far engaged respectively with the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine.
The minister said in fulfilment of the President’s pledge to restore sanity to the electoral process, he resolved that he would not confer a special advantage on any political party, including the ruling All Progressives Congress, during the election.
He said during the past elections, the President ensured that nobody used the security agencies to rig the election in his favour but created a level-playing ground for the elections to take place.
“Proof of this resolution is that the President’s party lost the presidential election in Katsina, his home state.
“Equally, the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, lost in his state, Lagos, while the Chairman of the Party, Abdullahi Adamu, lost in Nasarawa state to the Labour Party.
The Director-General of the Campaign Organisation of our party also lost to PDP in Plateau State.
“Nothing gives this election more credence than those facts because there was no rigging in states where our bigwigs come from,” he said.
The minister added that APC lost in the four states with the highest number of votes in the elections – Katsina, Kano, Kaduna and Lagos even when they were the ruling party’s controlled states.
Mohammed said the allegations of fraud being bandied by the opposition and naysayers did not add up.