The Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, said Wednesday that President Muhammadu Buhari did not intervene in the governorship debacle in Adamawa state because it’s within the purview of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The minister said this why fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
“I don’t think this government has ever intervened in the way the Independent National Electoral Commission conducts elections, so there was no need for us to intervene. It was entirely an INEC and INEC handled it.
“The Chairman of INEC is in charge of all employees of INEC and he is handling it, so what do you want the government to do, was the president was disappointed by class matters?
“The President does not micromanage any institution under him. I think you should go and ask INEC. INEC handles all these agencies,” he said.
The minister also spoke on his trip to the United States of America and why he accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party Mr Peter Obi of treason.
He said since Obi did not rebuke his running mate, Datti Baba Ahmed for saying that if the President-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is sworn-in on May 29, that would be the end of democracy in the country, it meant that Ahmed said the mind of Mr. Obi.
“I went to the US to balance the skewed report about the just-concluded elections. And everywhere I went, I said it very unambiguously that the last general elections in Nigeria are the most transparent, the freest and was authentic.
“And that’s despite the efforts of the opposition to delegitimise or discredit the elections. And I forwarded my position there that few reasons why these elections were the best was because, one, that deployment of technology, especially BIVAS, made it pretty difficult for anybody to do the usual things before which were over-voting, stuffing ballots and the like, because once it takes your biometrics you can’t go twice.
“Secondly, I said because the President also showed that he promised that he will provide a level-playing ground which he did. In the first instance, Mr President did not confer any advantage on his ruling party,” he said.
