The Federal Government has admonished former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to truncate the 2023 general elections with his inciting, self-serving and provocative statement on the ongoing electoral process.
The admonition is contained in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.
The statement was made available to the media by Segun Adeyemi, the special assistant to the president (media) office of the minister.
Mr Mohammed said what the former president cunningly framed as an ‘appeal for caution and rectification was nothing but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process and a willful incitement to violence.
The minister expressed shock and disbelief that a former president could throw around unverified claims and amplify wild allegations picked up from the streets against the electoral process.
“Though masquerading as an unbiased and concerned elder statesman, former President Obasanjo is in reality a known partisan who is bent on thwarting, by subterfuge, the choice of millions of Nigerian voters,’’ he said.
Mr Mohammed recalled that the former president, in his time, organised perhaps the worst elections since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999.
According to the minister, Mr Obasanjo is the least qualified to advise a president whose determined effort to leave a legacy of free, fair, credible and transparent elections is well acknowledged within and outside Nigeria.
