Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) vice presidential candidate, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to cease intimidating the judiciary.
The former vice president was responding to a comment attributed to Lai Mohammed, the minister of information, culture, and the arts.
Remember how the Minister had criticized the Labour Party and the PDP for their response to President Muhammadu Buhari's appraisal of the 2023 presidential election?
Buhari said opposition parties were luxuriating in the ecstasy of false hope while the All Progressives Congress (APC) was working hard to retain the presidency last Thursday during a meeting with APC governors in Abuja.
Lai Mohammed had also counseled the political parties that had been wronged to quit complaining nonstop about the results.
Mohammed claimed in a statement released on Sunday that the president's explanation on why the opposition lost the 2023 elections was unarguable.
In response, Atiku called Buhari's comments disgusting and disgraceful, accusing him of serving as the election heist's top marketing officer in an effort to maintain the ruling APC against the wishes of Nigerians.
The statement read: "We have observed a pattern where senior government officials are subtly intimidating the judiciary into submission, beginning with President Muhammadu Buhari himself when he made a comment that will forever remain in infamy while hosting some governors of his party and claimed "the opposition lost the election due to overconfidence and complacency."
"While it is widely accepted that Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, has a reputation for being a busybody, it is absurd for the Minister to follow his boss' lead and comment on a case that is already in court.
"Due to its history of broken promises, the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government has already established itself as Nigeria's most careless administration.
We have seen how woefully this administration failed to deliver on its promises, despite President Buhari and his appointed INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, promising Nigerians and the entire world that a credible, free, and fair general election would be held in 2023, with technology being used to track and protect every single ballot.
“If officials of the Buhari government must explain anything within their remaining days, let it be about telling Nigerians how they failed on their promises including issues of naira redesign; destruction instead of creation of jobs; the pervading state of insecurity and divisions along ethno-religious and political lines; galloping inflation and high cost of living; removing the corruption around the issues of fuel subsidy and their latest promise of conducting a national census, which, typically, they have failed to deliver upon.
Before returning to the Niger Republic, they must also explain to Nigerians why their home nation is the world's most impoverished nation.