Lai Mohammed, minister of communication and culture, should be brought to justice, according to Edwin Clark, an Ijaw national leader and the head of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), for distributing false information against Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi (LP).
Speaking to several foreign media outlets in Washington, DC, on April 4, Mohammed cautioned Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate, against encouraging violence over the election’s conclusion.
In an interview with Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed said that Bola Tinubu, the president-elect of Nigeria, did not match the qualifications set down in the country’s constitution.
He requested that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) not appoint Tinubu as president since he had not met the qualifications set forth for election to the position.
Some well-known Nigerians, including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, criticised his speech, but Mohammed carried the criticism on a global scale.
In a statement on Monday, Clark responded to this by claiming that the minister of information had abused his position to carry out an unlawful act.
He urged the nation’s attorney general to “undertake a comprehensive investigation of the actions” of Mohammed and bring charges against him for acting as the “mastermind and disseminator of fake news” in court.
The finding of a scheme by an interim administration to topple the federal government, according to Clark, was spiteful and inaccurate.
“As I indicated, Lai Mohammed based his claims on falsehood and propaganda rather than any reliable intelligence report from the state authorities. As a result, I believe that he should be held accountable for disseminating false information and untrue information on an innocent Nigerian who is well-known and has established his value in the nation. Lai Mohammed engaged in this perfidy while holding the high office of the country’s ministry of communication, the speaker claimed.
“Most Nigerians nowadays are quite astute observers of what is happening in the country, as Lai Mohammed is well aware of. We have also kept a careful eye on the important political players and their close associates’ words, deeds, and inactions. Because of this, it is utterly unacceptable for a minister in control of a sensitive government agency that disseminates information to position himself as a source of inaccurate information, derogatory innuendos, and even fake news.
Hence, it is evident that the information minister has set himself up to become the creator and propagator of fake news. We are left with no choice but to request that the attorney general of the country conduct a comprehensive investigation into the minister’s behaviour and bring legal charges against him.
For anyone to mention Peter Obi, who participated fully in the 2023 presidential election and who went to court to express his dissatisfaction with the results, is criminal, unpatriotic, and wicked. His popularity, which has spread to every corner of the nation like a wildfire, has undoubtedly caused great embarrassment to the federal government.
“What is being claimed as a DSS finding of a federal government overthrow plot is spiteful and inaccurate,”
