Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo has said the US is aware that the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, lost the presidential election.
Gatekeepers News reports that Keyamo said this in response to Obi’s comment on the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken’s call to President-Elect, Bola Tinubu.
Blinken had pledged his support and cooperation to Tinubu.
Keyamo in a tweet on Friday said, “It’s obvious that you (Obi) and your supporters have overrated your noise and tantrums after the election as having any real effect internationally. No, they have not had any such massive effect as you would wish.
“Unfortunately for you, the US have dealt with so many opposition figures around the world and they know exactly how to separate facts from fictions.”
He emphasised that the US knows Obi lost, “fair and square. They know that in a complex society like Nigeria you could not have won with your message of ‘religious war’. They know you’re just a splinter of the main opposition, the PDP, so it amounts to delusions of grandeur to think that you won when you actually came third.”
The Minister added that Tinubu’s inauguration will not stop because of Obi’s petition.
Keyamo wrote, “They also know the declaration of a winner already announced by INEC has the force of law and is the only acceptable legal framework upon which to proceed than your Petition in court that is yet to be decided upon. You really want this country to stand still because you have a case in court? Is that what we have practiced in this country for decades?
“Recall, sir, that when you won your second term in office as Governor of Anambra State, your opponents were in the Tribunal when you were sworn in and you got congratulatory messages from across Nigeria and the world. Did you reject those congratulatory messages because your opponents were in court? Why are you now misleading these largely hapless mob trooping blindly after you? Why?
“As you are going about with this pretentious holier-than-thou attitude, a court of law just nullified the nomination of a number of your Party’s candidates at the last election. Are you not more worried about this development, even as it affects yown nomination as the Labour Party’s Presidential candidate?”
He wrote further, “Mr. Peter Obi, your pontifications about the last Presidential election are getting very worrisome. They are beneath you. They are designed only to appeal to the mob. You know you lost the election; we know you know; and you know we know that you know.
“Please, come down from your high horse.”