The Federal Government through the Honorable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed stated yesterday that the outcome of the 2023 Presidential election surprised foreign commentators because of their wrong mindset, before the polls.
Lai Mohammed said this in London during his engagements with some international media organisations and think tanks.
His words: “In the course of my interactions, particularly with the Economist, I referred them to an earlier article they wrote, in which they rated the Labour Party Presidential candidate as the front runner in the polls.
“I explained to them that there was no way a presidential candidate who has no political spread and a grassroots base could win an election in Nigeria.
“I also explained to them that many of them were ignorant of the constitutional requirements for a presidential candidate to win an election in Nigeria.
“For instance, not only that the candidate must have the plurality of votes, but he must also have one-quarter of the total vote cast in at least 25 states of the federation.
“When you look at the results, only the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, met these requirements.
“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, came short of these because he came second and had 25 per cent in 21 states. Obi came far behind with 25 per cent in 15 states.
“This means that Obi, who was wrongly adjudged as a front-runner in the election, was virtually unknown and unpopular in 22 states.
“For any party to ignore the North-East and the North-West Zones of Nigeria during a presidential election, it will be impossible for it to win.
“The election had thrown up a lot of surprises and it is precisely those surprises that made it credible and transparent.”
He furthered on the issue of large turnout of youths for voter registration: “What INEC did was to ensure the extension of voter registration exercise for about 18 months so that people will not be disenfranchised.
“However, it is one thing to register to vote and it is another thing to come out to vote on an election day.
“Those 24 million people that came out to vote during the polls were the authentic people that concluded the processes of the election,” he said.
