10 Months After Elections, Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi Yet To Publicly Account For Multi-Billion Naira Campaign Donations
LP had in October 2023 launched a website for Nigerians at home and abroad to donate funds to the Obi campaign organisation.
Nigerian opposition party, Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, are yet to publicly detail how they spent the 2023 campaign donations running to billions of Naira.
The Nigerian presidential election was held on 25th of February, 2023.
LP had in October 2023 launched a website for Nigerians at home and abroad to donate funds to the Obi campaign organisation.
Obi also in a series of tweets in December 2022 released bank account details for Nigerians to donate towards “making the New Nigeria Dream a reality”.
While unconfirmed sources said billions of Naira were generated, the party has failed to release statement of account for the campaign ten months after the poll despite promising to do so.
One of the signatories to the Obi/Baba-Ahmed Campaign Organisation Aisha Yesufu, in September 2023 revealed that the statement of account for the campaign would be made public after the petition by the conclusion of Obi’s petition at the Supreme Court.
“Next is Supreme Court ruling and then election would be duly rounded up and the statement of account of Obi/Baba-Ahmed Campaign Account can be made public by the Presidential candidate! There are many who have concluded their election, Obi/Baba-Ahmed Campaign hasn’t,” she had said.
“This is my second time of being one of the signatories of a campaign account. I was one in 2018/2019. As soon as we withdrew from the campaign we made account public because we were done. This time also we have to be done for the account to be made public.”
The Supreme Court however in October 2023 upheld the election of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Meanwhile, a Twitter user, Arc Uche Rochas, @U_Rochas has mocked the LP presidential candidate for failing to publicly detail how he spent his campaign donations.
According to Rochas, Obi as governor of Anambra made the state budget his personal property and didn’t allow it to be seen nor scrutinized by the press and public.
He tweeted, “During Peter Obi time as Governor of Anambra state, he didn’t allow the state budget to be seen or be scrutinized by both the press & d public, he made it his personal property.
“The same way he is reluctant to account for the campaign donations, how much he spent and how much is left. Is their Messiah afraid of accountability?”
Meanwhile, Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC) is the only candidate in the 2023 presidential election who has publicly declared how his campaign donations were spent.
In June, 2023, Sowore, through the Sowore Political Action Committee (SPAC), released the final detailed account of his campaign revenue and expenditure.
The SPAC in a statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Femi Adeyeye, challenged all the opposition candidates who participated in the general elections to publicly declare their campaign funding sources and expenditures.
Sowore in October 2022 also gave a detailed account of the expenditure and revenue from funds raised to fund his presidential campaign, and in January this year, the SPAC released details of financial transactions made to support his campaign for November 2022.
Adeyeye stated that the SPAC had released the final breakdown of the 2023 presidential election campaign donations, sources of funding and expenditures in line with the best campaign practices and the spirit of accountability.
