TheCable

Lai Mohammed, minister of information, says the opposition is dispatching a 10-man delegation to the US, UK to discredit the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and the forthcoming polls.

Mohammed said this on Monday while speaking with journalists in Abuja.

The minister said the opposition is planning to tell these countries that the Buhari administration has concluded plans of rigging the polls.

“We can reveal that the opposition is moving a step further. They are working hard to discredit the forthcoming election before, during and after the polls,” he said.

“To further their plan, the opposition is dispatching a 10-member delegation to some Western capitals, including London, Brussels and Washington DC to sell the idea that the Buhari administration has perfected the plan to rig the election.

“They have no empirical basis for the idea they are pushing, beyond relying on exploiting the nation’s ‘fault lines’ of religion, ethnicity and regionalism. Specifically, they are sending a delegation to some western capitals, including London, Brussels and Washington DC to push the concocted line that the Buhari administration has perfected the plan to rig the polls.

“They are therefore pushing for a rejection of the results if the president wins reelection. They are also predicting carnage in the event of the president’s victory.”

The minister said the the government is committed to free, fair, credible and peaceful polls.

“We are glad that local and international observers are already fully mobilised to monitor the election,” Mohammed said.

“We call on all Nigerians to be vigilant as we begin the final countdown to the election. Eternal vigilance, as the saying goes, is the price of liberty. We must not allow desperate politicians to crash our democracy on the altar of their personal – and sometimes inordinate – ambition.”

This claim by the minister is coming about two weeks after he accused the opposition of planning to perpetrate violence during the polls.