2023 POLLS: Lai Mohammed lied, Afenifere insists

The Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has come under fire from the pan-Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere for recent remarks he made about the just ended general election in the United States of America.

This was contained in a statement released by its Secretary-General on Wednesday in Akure, the capital of Ondo State, by Chief Sola Ebiseni.

The statement was headlined “Lai Mohammed on the burden of democracy and the 2023 elections.”

Ebiseni asserted that the election was not free and fair, despite the minister’s claims to the contrary, insisting that the minister lies in connections to issues around the 2023 elections.

The statement reads, “It is most disheartening that Nigeria, the most populous black nation, is bedevilled with some of the men in the present Buhari administration whose actions continue to diminish the image of the country. It is more appalling that they unashamedly chose the foreign land for their macabre dance.

READ ALSO:2023 POLLS: Face your opponents, stop blackmailing INEC, group tells aggrieved candidates

“Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information falls in this unenviable class with his current visits and interviews in the United States of America to taint sacred facts about the 2023 presidential election.

“Whereas the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the glare of the whole world admitted the failures of the statutorily prescribed components of the electoral process, Lai Mohammed falsely stated that ‘the just concluded general elections in Nigeria is the fairest, most transparent and authentic in the history of Nigeria’, before an audience that knows the truth to the contrary and have so expressed in their editorials.

“It is certainly not true as Lai Mohammed claimed that ‘under our laws today, management of election results is manual’, the ruling of the court ‘that INEC has the exclusive right to determine the mode of election, its collation and transmission’ only compels the commission to act in tandem with its electoral guidelines to that effect.

“The minister lied when he claimed that ‘the President ensured that nobody used the security agencies to rig the election in his favour but created level-playing ground for the election’.”

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