Minister of State for Labour, and Director of Strategic Communications of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, APC-PCC, Mr. Festus Keyamo, Thursday, sent a petition to the Department of State Services, DSS, asking the agency to rein in the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi, and his running mate, Mr. Datti Baba-Ahmed, over alleged utterances reportedly aimed at destabilizing the country.
In the petition, Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, accused the two men of making highly combustible statements about the emergence of their principal, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as President-elect. The statements, he said, were capable of igniting a conflagration in Nigeria.
Keyamo cited the interview that Datti Baba-Ahmed granted Channels TV on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, where the LP Vice President declared that swearing in Mr. Tinubu as Nigeria’s President on May 29, would amputate the country’s democracy.
Alleging that Baba-Ahmed, in the said interview, unilaterally declared the emergence of the President-elect as unconstitutional, and reportedly threatened to unleash mayhem if Tinubu was sworn in on May 29, Keyamo declared:
“These comments and claims are made, not just within the boundaries of exercising their rights to freedom of speech and the freedom to air their grievances publicly, but they have since crossed the line to call for the outright truncation of democracy by insisting on the adoption of other processes outside the contemplation of our Constitution.”
Keyamo also alleged that Obi and Baba-Ahmed sponsored some youths to invade social media with hateful and inciting messages that could stoke violence in the country, adding: “In some cases, their privies have even called for the establishment of an Interim Government.”