The National Leader of Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and elder statesman Edwin Clark,
has said that the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, should be prosecuted for spreading fake news against the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP). Peter Obi.
While speaking on the 4th of April in Washington DC during an engagement with some international media organisations, Lai Mohammed issued warnings to Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate, against inciting violence over the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
The vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Baba-Ahmed had noted in an interview that the president-elect Bola Tinubu, did not meet the constitutional requirements to become Nigeria’s president as he failed to fulfill the requirements stipulated for election to the office of the president and asked the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN) not to swear him in as president.
The statement by Datti-Ahmed had received backlash from Nigerians, including the Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, however, Mohammed took the criticism of the remark to an international level.
In reaction to the statement made by the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed. Clark noted that Mohammed misused his office to commit an illegitimate act, thereby calling on the Attorney General of the nation to undertake a thorough investigation of the activities of the minister and charge him to court for constituting himself as a mastermind and disseminator of fake news.
He added that the discovery of a plot of an interim government aimed at overthrowing the federal government was malicious and untrue.
Clark affirms that Mohammed’s statement is not based on any credible intelligence report from the state agencies, but on propaganda and falsity.
He requested that the minister should be charged for spreading unhealthy information and fake news against an innocent Nigerian who is very prominent and has proven his worth in the country.
The elder statesman snapped that it is completely unacceptable that a minister who in charge of such a sensitive government department as dissemination of information should constitute himself to become the purveyor of false information, innuendos, and even fake news.
He further highlighted that it is criminal, unpatriotic, and wicked for anyone to draw the name of Peter Obi who fully participated in the 2023 presidential election and who has gone to court to express his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the presidential election and his popularity which has spread to all part of the country as a wildfire has no doubt caused a great embarrassment to the federal government.
Mosunmola Ogi-olu
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