The 2023 presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, said that involving an external auditor would be the best line of action amid the swirling allegation that the party’s leadership has misappropriated N3.5 billion.
Recall that the now-suspended LP National Treasury, Oluchi Opara recently accused National Chairman, Julius Abure of misappropriating N3.5 billion belonging to the party.
However, Abure accused Opara of playing the script of “external forces” bent on destroying the party, while threatening to institute defamation proceedings against her.
Reacting at a Thursday media briefing in Abuja, Obi said such a weighty allegation would not be swept under the carpet.
“For the party (LP), I am a member of the party, and they have chosen to say that I am the leader.
“What we need to do in the party, and I have discussed it with the leadership, is that we must now appoint a reputable audit firm to audit and be able to deal with the account of the party.
“When I am involved in, anywhere money is it must be transparent. So the allegations and counter allegations now must be thoroughly investigated and verified and we would reconcile it and know what exactly what we do,” Obi said.
Obi said an external auditor has thus been contracted to examine the party’s books.
He added, “We will account for everything now that we have an independent person who will tell us which way forward.”
Obi’s campaign team also rendered an account of the 2023 Obi-Datti presidential campaign organisation.
Chairman of the Fund Raising Team of the Obi-Datti Campaign Organization, Aisha Yesufu, who rendered the account, said that the Obi-Datti campaign received N595,976,994.00 from Nigerians as donations.
She explained that N744,500,000.00 was expended on litigations over the 2023 presidential election.
According to her, the presidential candidate, Peter Obi, gave N800,000,000 towards the campaign.
“Accountability and transparency are very critical and important; that is why we asked people to donate so that we could come back to them to explain how their money was judiciously used.
“ We thank everyone who donated in cash and kindness. From the donations from citizens, we received N595,976,994.
“This is the money we raised from the four accounts that we have talked about. We also received N800, 000,000 from the candidate himself (Peter Obi).
“We designed a strategic blueprint focused on channeling the movement energy and support for Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed with different support groups.
“We provided direct and indirect support to over a hundred support groups across all 36 states in Nigeria. We also deployed media-related campaigns that reached over 11 million people, leveraging over 40 radio stations, community outreach, and social media.
“We would have loved to use televisions and all of that, but because of our financial constraints, we were mindful of being judicious in our usage of the funds that we received.
“So, out of these things, campaign materials worth N258,374,330.00 were procured and distributed across the 36 States and also in Abuja. Media and radio broadcasting was at the cost of N16,432,867.00.
“For the election promotion expenses, we had N10,808,948.00. For Polling Unit Agents, we spent N324,381,700.00. And then, of course, we had bank charges of N1,750,544.00. We also had administrative charges of N477,000.00,” Yesufu said.