The Labour Party (LP) on Wednesday alleged that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has received warnings to leave the country or face arrest by security agencies.
In a press statement, chief spokesperson of the Obi-Datti Campaign Council, Tanko Yunusa, said the alleged warnings are linked to Peter Obi’s ongoing legal challenge to the outcome of the February 25 presidential election which produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as president-elect.
LP stated that the former Anambra State Governor is under “immense pressure” to leave Nigeria as part of plots aimed at forcing him to abandon his legal suit currently before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
The statement reads: “Most unfortunately, in the past few weeks, Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the February 25th, 2023 presidential election has been contacted by associates, elder statesmen, family and friends with concerns for his personal safety.
“These concerns have increased intensely in the last few days as immense pressure, has been mounted directly on Mr. Obi to leave the country, no doubt from sources allied to the All-Progressive Congress (APC) and its agents in the security services. Mr Obi has been repeatedly and categorically told that he has a choice to leave the country or face the prospect of being arrested on false charges of inciting insurrection in the country.
“It is difficult to fathom and indeed unfortunate and regrettable that state institutions have become part of a well calculated, deliberate and orchestrated campaign of calumny by the APC to discredit and delegitimize Mr Peter Obi and compel him to abandon his right to seek redress in court following the outcome of the last election which was adjudged both locally and internationally to have failed to meet any standard of credibility or fairness.”
Tanko also stated that a recent audio where Obi was alleged to have told Bishop Oyedepo Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church in a phone conversation that the presidential election was “a religious war” was doctored and circulated as part of a grand plot to de-market Obi.
The party further alleged that the audio had been translated into the Hausa language is being distributed by some Muslim clerics in the North to mislead residents of the region.
The party said: “As part of the grand design, they are circulating a fake doctored audio call. At no time throughout the campaign and now did Mr Peter Obi ever say, think or even imply that the 2023 election is or was a religious war. It is very sad and wicked the attempts to manipulate Nigerians. Our legal team have been instructed to take appropriate legal actions against Peoples Gazette and others.
“Despite the public denunciation of the fake audio call, its contents have been translated to other Nigerian languages and circulated in most parts of Northern Nigeria with some of our Moslem clerics deceived and instigated to use the contents for their sermons at various Mosques during the usual Friday prayers. This is a dangerous development at a time when the APC led-government and the APC party which have been awarded undeserved and unfair victory should be more concerned in addressing the ethnic and religious frictions unfortunately created by the outcome of the elections.
“Yet unsatisfied but determined to cause more problems, Mr Lai Mohammed, who fancies himself as modern day Gobbeal is on a tour of some selected countries to present an alternative story about the 2023 discredited election, and from his first statement in Washington have assumed the role of the courts by stating that Mr Obi has no pathway to victory. This is a direct intimidation of the courts and a waste of taxpayers’ money (Nigeria’s money).
“There are many more campaigns of calumny against Mr Peter Obi planned for the near future both before and during the court process. However, we want to make it clear to the APC party, APC led-government and its agents that Mr Peter Obi a widely traveled man has no intention to leave the country at this time irrespective of the pressure on him and his family. He is determined as he had stated in his first and only press conference after the election to challenge the outcome of the election and the process has begun. It is his fundamental right!
“While we call on all concerned Nigerians and the International Community to caution APC and the APC Led-government to stop their nasty attacks, Mr Peter Obi’s focus and commitment to lawfully and peacefully retrieve our mandate to secure and unite our Nation, take Nigeria from consumption to production, pull millions of Nigerians out of multidimensional poverty especially in the North and jumpstart prosperity through agricultural, industrial and technological revolution remains unchanged.”