Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has asked the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 elections, Atiku Abubakar, to apologise to Nigerians for distracting the government instead of appealing the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
The tribunal on Wednesday dismissed petitions of Atiku and the PDP challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari at the polls.
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Atiku has said he would appeal the judgement at the Supreme Court.
Mohammed, however, in a statement on Thursday by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi, said that Nigerians would want the petitioners to join hands with Buhari’s administration in taking the country to the ‘next level’.
He said: “Nigerians are tired of this orchestrated distraction, and will rather wish that the opposition, having lost at the polls and in court, will now join hands with the government to move Nigeria to the next level.”
The minister said the PDP should be thankful it is not being prosecuted for claiming to have hacked into the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
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“It is intriguing that a party that trumpets the rule of law at every turn will present, in open court, evidence it claimed to have obtained by hacking into a supposed INEC server,” he said.
“Don’t they realise this is a criminal act for which they are liable? Instead of threatening to head to the Supreme Court, driven more by ego than commonsense, they should be sorry for allowing desperation to overwhelm their sense of reasoning. Enough is enough.”
