A former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has explained how the ministry discredited the negative narrative on the rigging of the 2023 presidential election.
Mohammed narrated this in a paper presentation at a Spokesperson Summit 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, the former minister recalled that just before leaving office in 2023, former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was faced with the allegations of rigging the presidential poll.
He said the allegation was largely centered around the delay in uploading results to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) IReV portal.
This, according to him, played no role in the official collation of election results.
Mohammed said the development was compounded by misplaced sentiments, fueled by sections of the international media that had relied on questionable pre-election opinion polls and social media noise, suggesting that the Labour Party (LP) candidate had won the election.
In correcting the negative narrative, Mohammed said his office opted for an evidence-based approach provided to both local and foreign media organisations and influential think tanks
He said: “Our goal was to present them with irrefutable facts on how the election was 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, U.S. Institute of Peace, Atlantic Council, and Chatham House, among others.
“To our surprise, many of these organisations were unfamiliar with Nigeria’s constitutional requirements for winning a presidential election.
“We explained that, under Chapter 6, Section 134 of the Constitution, a candidate must not only win the majority of votes but also secure at least 25% of the votes in no fewer than two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory,” he said.
“Based on this, we made it clear that neither the PDP nor LP candidates had a viable path to victory.
“We presented the breakdown: the LP candidate placed a distant third, trailing the APC candidate by approximately 2.7 million votes.
“The APC candidate not only won the highest number of votes but also secured 25 percent of the vote in 29 states – well above the constitutional threshold.
“The PDP candidate, who came second, met the 25 percent threshold in only 21 states, while the LP candidate achieved it in just 15 states. Both fell short of the constitutional criteria for victory”.
To further dispel the allegations of rigging, the former minister said they laid out compelling evidence that the APC lost in key states with high number of registered voters – Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina – even though all had APC governors.
Mohammed added: “If the APC had manipulated the process, why would it lose in its strongholds?
“We highlighted that major APC figures lost their states in the presidential election: the party’s presidential candidate, the sitting president, the party chairman, the campaign director general, and several APC governors all lost their home states.
“If the party were truly adept at rigging, would it have allowed such high-profile defeats?”
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© Ripples Nigeria
