Keyamo Blasts Peter Obi, Says He Wants to Delegitimize Tinubu’s Mandate

The Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has berated presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, over  claim that he won last Saturday’s presidential election, accusing him of attempting to delegitimize Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s  mandate.

Tinubu was declared the winner by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday with 8,794,726 votes. INEC said Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes while Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.

Reacting to the result declared by INEC in a press briefing on Thursday, Obi claimed that he won the poll and said he will explore all legal options to reclaim his mandate.

But in a swift reaction to the claim by the Labour Party candidate, the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Council in a statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson, Festus Keyamo, described Obi’s claim as “outlandish”.

“We make this brief statement in reaction to the Press briefing held earlier today by the defeated candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, wherein (in his now well-acknowledged penchant for spewing falsehood) he made the outlandish claim before the world that he won the 2023 Presidential Election, but he was robbed of the victory.

“Having been officially declared winner of the 2023 Presidential Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission and having received his Certificate of Return (along with his Vice-President Elect), the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have ignored these continuous false claims being peddled by Mr. Peter Obi and his supporters. But we recognise his motive of doing this is to simply delegitimise the mandate freely given to the President-Elect by the majority of Nigerians,” the statement said.

That APC PCC claimed that there was no way Obi could have won “having played the most divisive religious politics in our history.”

Noting that Tinubu has extended a hand of fellowship to his opponents, including Obi to join hands with him in nation-building, the APC campaign council said Obi should embrace that hand of fellowship and brotherhood by the President-elect as a committed patriot instead of “engaging in this crass grandstanding.”