Afenifere, Anya Ndigbo, Agbakoba, CSOs berate FG, Lai Mohammed over treason accusation against Obi, Datti

Condemnations have continued to trail Tuesday’s accusation leveled against Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Dr Peter Obi by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who had claimed that the former Anambra State Governor is guilty of treason and inviting insurrection in the country through alleged inciting statements credited to him and his running mate, Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed.

Speaking in Washington DC, United States, during his official engagement with some international media organisations, Tuesday, the minister described Obi’s comments on the just-concluded general elections as portraying the LP presidential candidate as ‘a desperate person,’ adding further that Obi ‘is not a democrat that he claimed to be.’

According to Mohammed, neither Obi nor the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had a chance of winning, as both ‘failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared as president.’

The minister further cautioned the Labour Party flag bearer from inciting people to violence over the outcome of the Presidential elections, stating that it was wrong for Obi to seek redress in court over the election results while also inciting people to violence in another.

“Obi and his Vice, Datti Ahmed cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sworn in on May 29, it will be the end of democracy in Nigeria.

“This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing. Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person, he is not a democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins election,” he said.

However, hours after making the comments, socio-political and cultural leaders, in addition to civil society organisations (CSOs) have accused the minister of ignorance of the constitution of the country, just as others warned him to desist from further threatening the LP candidate and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed.

The latest condemnations have come from Leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, as well as the Chairman, Board of Trustees of South East advocacy group, Anya Ndigbo, Dr Uma Eleazu, who in separate statement released, Tuesday, flayed Lai Mohammed for accusing Obi of committing treason and inciting insurrection in the country.

Also, the Secretary General of Afenifere, Chief Sola Ebiseni, and Constitutional rights lawyer, Mr Olisa Agbakoba have both condemned the minister’s accusations against Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed. In the same way as the civil society groups such as the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), and the Neo Africana Centre (NAC).

Both Pa Adebanjo and Dr Eleazu made their positions known in Lagos when the latter led members of his Anya Ndigbo group, comprising leaders of various Igbo Associations and Igbo Town Unions in Lagos, on a thank-you visit to the Afenifere leader for backing the South East during the Presidential election.

Other members of the Anya Ndigbo group in the entourage include; Mr Emeka Ugboju, chairman, Anambra State Department Union, Chief Amaechi Ebeledike, as well as, Mr Ikechukwu Amaechi, Engr Ben Akah, chieftain of Aka Ikenga group, and Mr. Emeka Ugwuoju, founder NESH Foundation and former President South-East, South-South professionals, Chief Amechi Ebeledike, President Association of Anambra State Development Unions, Lagos Chapter.

Welcoming the group, Pa Adebanjo opined that though necessary steps should be taken to arrest and prosecute Obi and Datti if they are found culpable of treason, said ‘we have enough of these irresponsible statements coming from this Government and that is why the government has lost confidence of the people.’

“Anyone who knows Lai Mohammed should not take him seriously. He should not be a judge in his own cause. Where was he when MC Oluomo was issuing his threat during the elections?

“We have had enough of these irresponsible statements coming from this Government and that is why the government has lost confidence of the people. Nobody can harass anybody because they are government. It is the same thing they are doing by trying to gag the press. This country belongs to all of us and we are going to be judged by the rule of law and not by the rule of Lai Mohammed or Buhari. If they have evidence, arrest him, prosecute him and jail him.”

“Myself and my organisation were the first to insist that it is the turn of the South East to produce the presidency. The Labour Party had not done its primary then. We insisted that justice must be justice. When Afenifere supported Obi, we made a strong press statement.

“The Yoruba people who are involved in ethnic profiling are the political rascals. When Chief Immanuel Iwuanyanwu spoke, they turned it around and said he called Yoruba people rascals. They know themselves. The MC Oluomo and co and those who sponsor him. Some of the chiefs who carried Oro on the day of the elections, you are asking people to go away. What about those who you made your Director of Budget and members of your cabinet? It shows insincerity in the whole thing. Because some people did not vote for you, you now castigate a whole tribe. What about those who voted for you?

“Some Igbo people voted for the APC. Ask Bola Tinubu and Babajide Sanwo-Olu: when did the enmity between them and the Igbo people begin? Was it before or after you appointed them into your cabinet? Is it before the elections or after the elections? What is the position of Joe Igbokwe? When they want to make mischief, they make mockery of a genuine agitation. Lagos is a cosmopolitan city and nobody disputes that it is a Yoruba land, nobody disputes that it belongs to the people of Lagos. They should not bring such untenable arguments that make people ridicule us,” Pa Adebanjo said.

On his part, leader of the delegation, Dr Eleazu described Federal Government’s allegation against Obi and his running mate as not making sense, adding that Nigerians have watched Lai Mohammed ‘since he became the Minister of Information and he has always been in the business of misinforming people in his role as Minister of Information.’

“What is insurrection? Can he give us a legal meaning of insurrection? The DSS and other security agencies tell us that some people are trying to take over the country. One thing I have learned about the Buhari administration is that they are good in drawing up red herrings and as you are following it, they will be doing what they want to do.

“Like Pa Adebanjo said if they have any real reason and facts to support what they have said, why don’t they make arrest? Why do we have the DSS or Police intelligence? Why don’t they bring the person involved to court to defend himself? What they do is to throw out a statement hanging in the air only to strike fear. So, I will dismiss whatever he (Lai Mohammed) had said as absolute nonsense. It does not make sense.

“There is a reason why we came. We came to thank you for standing by the South East and for supporting the Obi-Datti movement.

“Unfortunately, the do-or-die politics was introduced in Nigeria. The elections are over and we felt that the do or die politics should have stopped but it was carried on. By the time we got to the governorship elections, we started seeing some kind of insidious insinuations which in local parlance they call ethnic profiling and we know the danger it has caused in this world.

“We have seen ethnic profiling in Rwanda and the consequences.  We felt that after the elections, it will die down. The elections are over and people are still going to burn shops, markets are being closed.

“Elections are over and the things happening now are not what we expected to see. The elections are over but some people are acting out the template of their masters. People of goodwill should not allow this to go on,” said Eleazu.

On his visit to Pa Adebanjo, Elder Eleazu said: “Anya-Ndi-Igbo, Lagos comprising leaders of various Igbo Associations and Igbo Town Unions in Lagos, today paid a courtesy visit to Chief Ayo Adebanjo in his capacity as the leader of Afenifere to express our solidarity with his (Afenifere) stand on various national issues of mutual interest to the Yoruba and Igbo nations, and to plead with our Yoruba brothers and sisters not to succumb to the insinuations in sections of the press and social media that there is a battle for Lagos between Ndigbo and the Yoruba.

“There is no such battle. None. Zero.

“However, we have witnessed the activities of the little foxes that destroy the garden of our relationship. They are acting out the template of their masters. And we want all people of goodwill to do all they can to rein in such deviant behaviour before it gets out of hand,” he said.

Also reacting to the Federal Government’s accusation of treason against Obi, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), berated Mohammed for making the allegation, which he described as incorrect, as he argued that the charges leveled against the LP chieftain were false.

According to Agbakoba, Obi and Baba-Ahmed had the right to express their views on the presidential election outcome because they were simply saying what they thought.

“Treason has to be accompanied by some very violent act. I don’t see how people can just make a statement about what they think should be done with Peter Obi, committing treason, it’s not treason at all.

“Treason is defined in a criminal code with a specific element and just to make a speech is not treason,” Agbakoba said.

Also reacting to the accusation against Obi, the Secretary General of Afenifere, Chief Sola Ebiseni, called Lai Mohammed’s comments ‘ridiculous.’

Ebiseni, who made the disclosure, Tuesday, in Akure, Ondo State capital, added further that ‘the burden of democracy… is too weighty for this government and its agents.’

“It is ridiculous that the same government that permissively watched leaders and spokespersons of the ruling party and their thugs openly execute their treasonable acts against the people and the democratic process in flagrant disrespect for the constitution would expect the decent world to take it serious in its shameful sanctimonious preaching on allegation of treason.

”In sum, it is clear that the burden of democracy where Nigerians, particularly the youths, have insisted that things be now done differently and rightly is too weighty for this government and its agents.”

”Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information falls in this unenviable class with his current visits and interviews in the United States of America to taint sacred facts about the 2023 Presidential election.

“Whereas the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the glare of the whole world had admitted the failures of the statutorily prescribed components of the electoral process.

”Lai Mohammed falsely stated that the just concluded general elections in Nigeria is the fairest, most transparent and authentic in the history of Nigeria, before an audience that knows the truth to the contrary and have so expressed in their editorials.”

”lt is certainly not true as Mohammed claimed that “under our laws today, management of election results is manual”, the ruling of the court “that INEC has the exclusive right to determine the mode of election, its collation and transmission” only compels the Commission to act in tandem with its electoral guidelines to that effect.

“The essence of the amending our elector laws resulting in the Electoral Act 2022 is the surgical removal of the mischief of managing our electoral process by the pernicious manual procedures.

“In a clear case of abuse of office, Lai Mohammed, trying desperately to dance himself back to the mind of his party candidate having taken a different course during the primaries, have mindlessly descended to the abyss of falsehood reminiscent of his modus operandi as party spokesperson with which he has odiously smeared the office of the nation’s Minister of Information.

“Rather than tout the loss of the home states of some of his party’s leaders to the opposition as proof of fair election, Lai Mohammed should have been courageous enough to ascribe the feat to the vigilance of the people and why they incurred the wrath of organised and armed hired thugs in the elections.

“One wonders what is left for the courts to decide after the crude analysis by Lai Mohammed of the performance of the candidates, the figures of which he effortlessly and shamelessly bacterized.

”He ruled that “Obi and Atiku failed to meet the constitutional requirements to be declared president.

“He crudely handed down judgment on the status of the FCT and lied against the constitution when he said “not only must a candidate have the plurality of votes, he must also have scored one-quarter of votes cast in at least 25 states”.

”He cheekily awarded figures to the candidates with 8.79 million and one-quarter in 29 states to the APC, 6.9 million and 21 states to PDP and 5.8 million and 15 states to the Labour Party which is contrary to the results declared by the INEC and even being hotly contested in court.

“Lai Mohammed’s disrespect for the courts before which those facts have been submitted for fair and independent adjudication is beyond the realm of contempt; it is treasonable because of his high office subjecting the courts to undue pressure of the opinion of the reasonable man to whom separation of powers and independence of the judiciary have no meaning having watched this government treat the judiciary, its judgments and orders with unmitigated disdain.”

“Talking about treasonable comments, Lai Mohammed may need to rewind his own past statements particularly the interview he granted Sani Tukur of Premium Times on April 27, 2013 wherein he said “Democracy will fail in Nigeria unless APC wins in 2015. His principals did not fare better,” the Afenifere Secretary General said.

Further weighing in on the treason accusation against Obi and Datti, a civil society group in the country, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), accused Lai Mohammed of lacking knowledge of the country’s laws as it relates to the status of a president-elect, who the group claimed ‘does not possess any constitutional powers, authority or functions to perform on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.’

The group, in a statement by its national Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said it was embarrassed that ‘a man who claims to have gone through the law school not to know that a President- elect is yet to be inaugurated and so has neither constitutional authority over the territory of the Federation nor any powers to exercise as Head of State of Nigeria.’

“Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the INEC-declared President-elect and this pronouncement by the ethnically-deficit and corrupt INEC is being challenged through a litigation permitted by section 6 of the constitution. The chapter 4 of the constitution guarantees every citizen of Nigeria, including Peter Obi, the fundamental freedoms, including freedom to associate with everyone and to exercise his freedom of speech. The likes of Lai Mohammed must stop his overzealousness and stop disgracing us.”

“HURIWA is therefore warning Mr. Mohammed to stop the channel noise and to stop overheating the polity because there is no law that says persons who feel cheated in an election should sit indoors.

“This Lai Mohammed needs to go back to Year One in the University of Ilorin for crash course on constitutional freedoms and the powers of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; and so he is made aware that a President-elect is simply someone on rehearsal and hasn’t yet been conferred with any legal powers exercisable by a sitting President. And even a sitting President can be thoroughly criticised by the people of Nigeria who owns the sovereignty of Nigeria. Anyone contemplating arresting Peter Obi would have to arrest 60 million Igbo people worldwide and the Obidient family, cutting across all religions and ethnicities.”

HURIWA further cited sections 34 (1); 35 (1);39 (1); 41 (1); 42 (1,2) as the fundamental rights provisions to justify the right of all citizens to freedom of expression, including Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar who are contesting the emergence of the APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The rights group recalled specifically that the Minister said Obi was in court, in one breadth, to seek redress over the outcome of the polls and, in another breadth, incite people to violence.

“Obi and his Vice, Datti Ahmed, cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sworn in on May 29, it will be the end of democracy in Nigeria.

“This is treason. You cannot be inviting insurrection, and this is what they are doing. Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person, he is not the democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins election,” the CSO said.

Similarly weighing in on the treason and insurrection allegations leveled against Obi ad Datti by the minister, a public policy think tank group, the Neo Africana Centre (NAC) accused Mohammed of being on ‘a mission of blackmail and deceit as there is no basis for the charge.’

NAC stated that, ‘it is reckless for a Nigerian minister to mount the rostrum in a foreign land for the purposes of blackmail and disinformation,’ as it accused the Federal Government and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of ‘working hard on a nefarious agenda to give Obi a bad name.’

In a statement by its Director of Public Affairs, Jenkins Udu, the NAC described the press briefing called by the minister in the United States as akin to ‘dancing naked in the streets of Washington DC or any other foreign capital for that matter,’ which the group said ‘is unhelpful.’

NAC further claimed that ‘Obi is known by one and all, including his accusers, of being innocent of the charge leveled against him,’ saying that ‘it was perplexed by this level of disinformation being sold to the international community by a highly-placed agent of the Federal Government.’

According to NAC, the involvement of Obi in the 2023 presidential elections was ‘a watershed in Nigeria’s electoral history.’

“We note with grave concern the campaign of calumny being mounted against Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 elections. It is much more worrisome that the devious act is being sponsored and promoted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its ruling arm at the Presidency. The objective, from what we can discern is to give Peter Obi a bad name and weaken his quest to retrieve the mandate which the Nigerian people freely gave him.

“This indulgence by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed is sinister, cheap, malicious and in bad taste.

“We urge the Nigerian government, its agencies and the ruling APC to stop their jittery disposition towards Peter Obi. The contentious issues that arose from the conduct of the elections by INEC are already before the courts. Let their Lordships adjudicate on them fairly and justly. This is what Nigerians are waiting for. Dancing naked in the streets of Washington DC or any other foreign capital for that matter is unhelpful,” the statement read.