Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the fabricated claims by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has succeeded in further demarketing the country in the international arena, causing more damage to investors’ confidence in the system and exposing this administration as purveyor of fake news.
The party in a statement issued yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, called on the minister to apologise to Nigerians for misleading the country and heating up the polity with unfounded security breach allegations against the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
According to him, “by his fabricated claims, the Information Minister only succeeded in further demarketing the country in the international arena, causing more damage to investors’ confidence in the system and exposing this administration as purveyor of fake news.”
Ologbondiyan stressed that it was indeed lamentable that in its desperation to secure acceptance from Nigerians and confer legitimacy to the outcome of a rigged election, Buhari’s administration would manufacture and purvey fake news to the public, only for Nigerians to learn from the same minister that his earlier claims against the PDP and its presidential candidate were not based on any concrete evidence.
The main opposition party said it feared that Mohammed could have made those wild allegations in a bid to pave the way to frame, harass, arrest and detain some opposition figures on trump-up charges.
The PDP spokesman added that the minister’s claims that he relied on certain alarms fell flat as no agency in the country had ever accused the PDP, as a political party, or its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, of “doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari’s administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable” as alleged by Mohammed.
He said, “With the assurances on Monday, that the nation was safe for the presidential inauguration, Mohammed has further exposed the fact that he, acting for the federal government, only conjured claims to create the impression that the PDP and Atiku Abubakar had set security breaches against the presidential inauguration. Allegations that have vanished like what they are – phantoms!
“It is now clear that the whole essence of the misleading allegation was to heat up the system, attempt to cow democratic voices, divert public discourse from the rigging of the Presidential election and scare the PDP and our Presidential candidate from pursuing our stolen Presidential mandate at the court”, the opposition party added.
The PDP stressed that such antics have failed as Nigerians have seen through them and are resolutely behind Atiku, in the determination to retrieve his mandate in the court, saying no form of blackmail and intimidation would detract from that resolve.
