Festus Keyamo, the minister of state for labour and employment, has called for the arrest and prosecution of Labour Party’s presidential candidate Peter Obi and his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed.

Mr Keyamo accused the presidential candidate and his running mate of inciting insurrection against Bola Tinubu, the president-elect in a petition to the State Security Service on Thursday.

He argued that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party and his running mate were not ready to follow the path of amity and national unity.

“Since the declaration of the presidential election results, they have been hopping from one media house to the other, making incendiary comments and claims about the declaration of the president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),” the petition by Mr  Keyamo partly read.

Mr Keyamo, who stated that he was submitting the petition in his capacity as a patriotic Nigerian and called for the arrest of Messer Obi and Baba Ahmed, urged the SSS to “invite/arrest, interrogate, and after investigation, if necessary, charge both individuals to court for their conducts, which amount to incitement and treasonable felony.”

The Minister further claimed that Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed had assembled a group of young people in a well-known Abuja hotel with the express purpose of instructing them to post provocative messages on social media every day in order to sow panic and fear throughout the federation and to stir up riots and civil unrest.

His petition was submitted two days after Peter Obi formally challenged the procedure used to determine the winner of the February 28, 2023, presidential election.

The petition, according to Labour Party’s Presidential Campaign Council spokesperson, Yunusa Tanko, starts the struggle to reclaim Mr Obi’s mandate from Mr Tinubu.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mr Tinubu the winner of the February 25th presidential election amidst protest by opposition parties over the failure of the commissioner to upload results from various polling units across the country on its server in real-time.
However, attempts to get the spokesperson for the Labour Party to respond to the petition were unsuccessful as he was not responding to calls, WhatsApp and text messages as of the time this report was filed.