Festus Keyamo, has petitioned the State Security Services (SSS), demanding the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed for making incendiary comments on television.
Keyamo Minister of State for Labour and Employment and also a spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) made copies of the petition available to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja.
He described comments made on television by Obi and Baba-Ahmed, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, respectively of the Labour Party (LP) at the Feb. 25 election as incendiary and capable of causing rebellion.
In the petition dated March 23, Keyamo noted that: “in a post-election period such as this, there is the need to soothe frayed nerves.’’
He noted that whilst exercising their rights to pursue constitutional means of addressing their grievances, the duo had been going from one television station to the other to make inciting statements.
He stated that the latest of such were comments made by Baba-Ahmed on behalf of himself and Obi on a television station on Wednesday.
He added that the LP’s vice-presidential candidate threatened on television that if the president-elect was sworn in on May 29, it would signal the end of democracy in Nigeria.
“Posing as an accuser, a judge and a jury all by himself, he unilaterally declared the return of the president-elect by INEC as unconstitutional.
“I also have it on good authority that Obi and Baba-Ahmed have camped some youths in a hotel in Abuja for posting inciting messages on social media platforms on daily basis.
“The posts are such that could cause panic and fear within the federation and incite people to riot and cause social unrest,’’ Keyamo stated in his petition.
He noted that while Obi and Baba-Ahmed had submitted election petitions to the courts for adjudication, their conducts and utterances amounted to subversion of the processes they had instituted in court.
He added that their action was also a subversion of the Constitution and the laid-down processes for addressing disputes and grievances.
“These conducts and utterances are a build-up to something more sinister and it is important you rein them in now.
“These comments and claims are made not just within the boundaries of exercising their rights to freedom of speech but have crossed the line to call for the outright truncation of democracy.
“They have been insisting on the adoption of other processes outside the contemplation of our Constitution.
“In some cases, their privies have even called for the establishment of an Interim Government.
“I submit this petition in my personal capacity as a patriotic Nigerian to invite, arrest, interrogate and if necessary charge both individuals to court for their conducts which amount to incitement and treasonable felony,’’ Keyamo stated.
Obi had maintained in his petition filed at the election tribunal that the labour Party ticket won the presidential election because they polled the majority of the lawful votes cast across the country.
The Labour candidate said he won the presidential election, but for the suppression of his votes across thousands of polling units.
Relying on the report of the inspection of the electoral materials and the report of forensic analysis, Mr Obi said he would show to the court that his votes were subtracted in many polling units and added to Mr Tinubu’s scores.
He said his votes “were unlawfully reduced and added by the 1st Respondent (INEC) to the scores of the 2nd Respondent (Mr Tinubu)”.
He and his party also alleged that both Tinubu and Shettima were not qualified to contest the election as of the time it was held on 25 February.
However, Datti Baba-Ahmed, who made a live appearance Wednesday on Channels Television’s Politics Today, argued that the APC failed to satisfy the requirements of Section 134 (2)(a) and (b) of the constitution for election to the office of the President.
According to the provisions of that section, the rightful winner is one who “has the highest number of votes cast at the election” and “has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja”.
Addressing President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, the LP vice-presidential candidate made the argument that going ahead with Tinubu’s inauguration would be unconstitutional.
“Mr President, do not hold that inauguration. CJN, Your Lordship, do not partake in unconstitutionality,” he said.
According to him, swearing in a ticket that has not met the requirements of the constitution is ending democracy.
“That is my interpretation and that is indeed a correct interpretation,” Baba-Ahmed added. You cannot swear [in] people who have not met the constitutional requirements; you can’t do that.
“If you do it, you have done something unlawful, something unconstitutional. I’m not taking risks with my safety and with my life. It was more extreme for [INEC Chairman, Mahmood] Yakubu to issue that certificate; it was reckless. He’s putting all our lives in danger.”
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