The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the just-concluded election, Peter Obi, has described the allegations levelled against him, his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, and the party by the government and some individuals in the count as an attempt to derail them from pursuing justice.
Obi, however, said he remained unwavering and committed to pursuing his petition at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to its logical conclusion.
He said this in an interview with Arise TV on Monday, May 1.
Speaking on the allegation of treason levelled against him by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammad, the LP presidential flag-bearer described it as the height of rascality and a waste of scarce resources.
Obi said: “That is the height of rascality. It was even announced in Washington. I committed a treasonable offence and I’m in Onitsha, and my minister went to announce it in Washington. This is the waste in governance we are talking about and people don’t want to understand.
“The amount it cost Nigeria for him to go and announce that in Washington can build a block of six classrooms in a primary school. I’m sure if you go to his village there are so many places where children don’t even have desks or classrooms to go to school.
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“Instead of using that money for this purpose, he went to Washington to announce treason against someone in Onitsha. He doesn’t need to do that. From there he went to London, announcing the same thing when I’m in Nigeria. He should have come to see me or invited me and tell me my offence.”
Speaking on the crisis in the Labour Party, the former governor of Anambra State said there were no issues in the party, noting that the reported crisis is just the “rascality” by paid agents bent on derailing the party to pursue justice.
“In the Labour Party, we have no issue. Barr Julius Abure is our chairman and those things you’re seeing are just the handiwork of paid agents who are trying to create confusion,” Obi added.
On the report showing a picture of him visiting the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, the former governor said he never visited the President-elect, as speculated on social media.
He explained that the rumours and accompanying photoshopped pictures being shared on social media were part of moves by the opposition to derail his objective.
“I never visited him (Tinubu). I didn’t. These are some of the things I have been telling you. They have turned the whole thing upside down and into a joke. So, what they (the opposition) do now is think about what they are going to do to cause issues and what they are going to do to label him (Obi) this or that.
“If it is not labeling him (Obi) tribal bigot, or religious bigot when he is not speaking, they will find his family and check whether he has a lovechild and all sorts of things, including misrepresented identity among others, I didn’t visit anybody,” Obi stressed.
He noted that despite all the allegations, he was committed to the course of justice and was ready to pursue the case before the tribunal to a logical conclusion.
Obi added that he doesn’t hold United Kingdom citizenship, saying even though he stayed in the country for some period, he returned his “unlimited residency permit” to the authorities when he was about to leave the country.
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