The Obi-Datti Media Office has denied that the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi’s recent trip abroad is a fund-raising tour.
The Herald reported that Obi has been in the United States, where he had speaking engagements in Charlotte in North Carolina, Atlanta in Georgia, Washington DC, New York, among others.
A support group for the APC presidential and vice-presidential flagbearers, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettima had asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to sanction Labour Party for allegedly violating a section of the Electoral Act on election funding.
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However, the Obi-Datti Media Office described the allegation as “desolate and baseless”, accusing the ruling party of conjuring up imaginary things against Obi and his running mate, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed, whom it previously called “structureless and social media candidates”.
The media office explained that Obi’s foreign trip was to carry Nigerians abroad along his nation-building agenda.
The statement read, “The Obi-Datti Media Office attention has been drawn to the desolate and baseless allegation by a support group of Tinubu-Shettima calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi and his running mate, Ahmed Baba Datti, from the 2023 presidential election for allegedly violating a section of Electoral Act on Election funding.
“All of a sudden, the structure-less and social media candidates are now the headache of the ruling party that they now had to fabricate and imagine things they want the electoral Commission to act on.
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“Obi’s successful trip abroad which is ostensibly to sensitize and carry along Nigerians aboard on his upcoming agenda of rebuilding the country is open and transparent and not a fund raising. But we know why its discomforting some people, because they cannot meet Nigerians in diaspora knowing that they contributed to their leaving the country in the first place.
“We have always said it umpteenth times that their own understanding of structure is the abundance of looted funds in their kitty that they plan to deploy on hungry Nigerian voters during the election to sway their votes.
“They know nobody has the kind of stolen funds they have and are always uncomfortable at anything suggesting to them that their opponents could match them. Obi did not go to beg for money but to sell himself and his mission to Nigerians outside the shores who are critical stakeholders in the Nigeria project.
“Since June 2022 that they deployed a lump of their loots to get the ticket of their party, the nation’s currency crashed and still battling for breath. And since then they have been mopping up foreign currencies ahead of the election to buy voters.”
The media office said it needed to educate Tinubu-Shettima supporters that Obi and his running mate were a knowledgeable duo that knows the law and operates within its ambits and “who became what they are financially, politically and socially doing legitimate businesses. They have no bullion van history of questionable wealth and are ready and willing to be scrutinized.”
The statement added, “Just as Obi and Dotti backgrounds and antecedents are verifiable so also is their source of income before and now are unambiguous and auditable.
“Obi and Datti reached where they are today in this 2023 journey giving no ‘shishi’ to anybody because they are investing on the suffering Nigerians impoverished by the greedy leaders of the past who diverted public funds to their private and family pockets.
“We understand their predicament, the dearth of contents from their principal, the lack of what to market, using the ample opportunity provided by the campaigns and the resort to searching blindly for reasons to disqualify the people’s only hope for a new and better Nigeria.
“Suddenly, they are beginning to realize that the social media giant, the structure-less and inconsequential candidates, are in the heart of the people who are convinced by their pragmatic messages. In frustration and envy they are now desperately looking for all crooked ways to stop them.
“Finally, we like to advise all those in this school of thought that the old order that kept us down as a nation will still work, to read the writing on the wall and know that their time is up and that Nigerians are ready and determined to take back their county now.”