Call for my arrest, prosecution baseless – Lai Mohammed replies Edwin Clark

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, says the call for his arrest and prosecution for admonishing Labour
Party Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over inciting the public to violence
is unjustifiable.

The minister stated this on Wednesday in London while
reacting to the call by Elder statesman and leader of the Pan Niger Delta
Forum, Chief Edwin Clark, that he should be arrested and prosecuted for
spreading “fake news” about Obi.

Mohammed said he stood by his admonition of Obi and his
running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, insisting that his advice was never premised on
falsehood.

“What will be my offence? Is it by chiding vice presidential
candidate of the Labour Party who said on live television that if the
President-elect Bola Tinubu is sworn-in on May 29 that that would be the end of
democracy in Nigeria?

“Is it for chiding him for saying that swearing-in Tinubu in
May 29 is like swearing-in the military?

“What is the fake news in that?” the minister queried.

He said Baba-Ahmed had never denied his statement made on
the live television

Mohammed also said that Obi had also not publicly called his
running mate to order over the treasonable utterances.

“The position of the law is clear that anybody who is
aggrieved over election results should go to court

“It is not to start threatening Nigerians and heating up the
polity simply because you lost an election,” he said.

Mohammed stressed that the APC won the presidential election
“fair and square” and INEC was right in declaring Tinubu the winner.

He reassured Nigerians and the international community that
the president- elect would be sworn-in on May 29.