By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The president-elect, Bola Tinubu has reacted to the statement made by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi.
Obi, during a press conference on Thursday, argued that he won the just concluded presidential election.
In a statement signed by the Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson, Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo advised the former governor of Anambra State to stop misleading the gullible, noting that Tinubu won the election and not him.
According to him: ”We make this brief statement in reaction to the Press briefing held earlier today by the defeated candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, wherein (in his now well-acknowledged penchant for spewing falsehood) he made the outlandish claim before the world that he won the 2023 Presidential Election, but he was robbed of the victory.
“Having been officially declared winner of the 2023 Presidential Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission and having received his Certificate of Return (along with his Vice-President Elect), the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have ignored this continuous false claims being peddled by Mr. Peter Obi and his supporters. But we recognise his motive of doing this is to simply delegitimise the mandate freely given to the President-Elect by majority of Nigerians.
“Peter Obi is always quick to cite some isolated incidents of irregularities outside his strongholds that could not have SUBSTANTIALLY affected the outcome of the results in those areas, whereas he DELIBERATELY fails to comment on tons and tons of evidence circulating everywhere wherein his supporters in his strongholds engaged in thuggery, hooliganism, violence and outright falsification of figures against our Party and our supporters. He pretends to play the victim, whereas he is the greatest culprit in this game of brickbats.
“It is also ludicrous that Mr. Peter Obi is laying claim to victory along with his new-found partner, the PDP, that is also laying claim to victory. I tweeted this morning, thus: ‘’This is the first time in my entire life that I am seeing people who came 2nd and 3rd in an exam both claiming they took first and then agreeing to protest together to the examiner to record that both of them took first, yet they are not seeing the contradiction in their actions.’’ We stand by that comment.
“The President-Elect, ASIWAJU Bola Ahmed Tinubu has extended a hand of fellowship to his defeated opponents, including Mr. Peter Obi to join hands with him in nation-building.
“Mr. Peter Obi should embrace that hand of fellowship and brotherhood by the President-elect as a committed patriot instead of engaging in this crass grandstanding.
