Atiku Demands Lai Muhammed’s Arrest for Raising False Alarm

By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has demanded the arrest of the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, for raising a false alarm that the PDP and its presidential candidate were planning to upstage the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The former vice-president said he is abreast of some other plans to plant fictitious stories in some mushroom media outlets aimed at discrediting him and his party.

Atiku, in a statement Thursday by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, said that it was becoming revealing the grand plot being orchestrated by some agents of evil to stagemanage pockets of upset targeted at attacking the reputation of Atiku.

He stated: “It is very unsettling that senior administration officials, especially those who are the mouthpiece of government will make reckless but calculated comments to tarnish the image of Atiku Abubakar and government will sit idly on it.

“With the conclusion reached by Premium Times’ investigative reporting that there is no evidentiary proof to back the claim by Lai Mohammed that the opposition was planning to upstage the government, we demand that the information minister should be arrested for raising false alarm and an apology rendered to Atiku Abubakar and the PDP.”

He emphasised that by the merit of what is beginning to unfold, there are plans to create some upset across the country whereby alleged perpetrators of such crimes would engage in phantom names dropping of Atiku and some senior personalities in his party.

The former vice-president said it therefore becomes preponderant that he alerts the public of this demonic plan and to say that it would be imprudent to compromise the peace and security of Nigerians in order to score a cheap political goal.

According him, “We wish to blow the whistle as an early warning alert of the grandiose scheme being put together by some unscrupulous elements aimed at jeopardising the reputation of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar in the coming days and weeks.

“Towards this end, and for the umpteenth time, we call on the federal government to be awake to its responsibilities of providing security and ensuring peace, and to desist from actions and utterances that are capable of exposing our fault lines.”