A former Minister of Information under former president Mohammadu Buhari, Lai Mohammed has opened up on how the credibility of the 2023 presidential election was defended before international media houses.
Recall that the 2023 presidential election was won by President Bola Tinubu, a candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
According to the former Minister, he led a team to the United Kingdom(U.K) and the United States (US) to engage directly with key international media organisations and influential think tanks.
He noted that his team visited Voice of America, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy Magazine, Associated Press, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and others.
Mohammed stated that the visits were important to educate these media houses who had no clear understanding of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution on presidential election.
The former Minister explained that the goal of the visits was to present ‘’irrefutable facts’’ on how the election was won and lost.
Mohammed made this disclosure during a summit of former spokespersons in government in Abuja.
He said: “Allegations of rigging had surfaced, largely centred around the delay in uploading results to the IReVportal. Which, notably, plays no role in the official collation of election results.
“I led my team to the United Kingdom and the United States to engage directly with key international media organisations and influential think tanks. 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 and Magazine, and Associated Press. We also met with the BBC, The Economist, Reuters, Bloomberg, Politico, Hudson Institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, and 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.
“Based on this, we made it clear that neither the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nor Labour Party (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 votes 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, we laid out compelling evidence. The APC lost in key States with high numbers of registered voters – Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina. Even though all had APC governors,” he said.