N3.5bn Labour Party scandal: Obi talks tough, demands thorough probe

The Crises rocking the Labour Party (LP) took another twist on Thursday when the Presidential Candiate of the party in the 2023 General election, Peter Obi dropped a bombshell insisting that transparency must be brought to bare through the instrumentality of an independent Auditor to lay to rest once and for all the allegations and counter allegation.
Reacting to the allegation agaisnt the embattled national chairman of the Party Julius Abure, Obi demanded a thorough probe of financial impropriety against him
Obi spoke on Thursday in Abuja at a media briefing to render the account of the 2023 Obi-Datti Presidential campaign organisation funding.
“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.
The National Working Committee (NWC) of the LP just slammed a six-month suspension on its embattled National Treasurer, Mrs. Oluchi Oparah on Eednesday fir daring to bring the party into disrepute
The LP NWC made the announcement during a press conference at the party secretariat on Wednesday in Abuja.
Oparah, however indicated that she would challenge the suspension in court, as the NWC’s action was premeditated, especially that those who took the action knew she was not in Abuja to meet the less than 12 hour 10am Wednesday deadline to appear before a panel and that they had also removed her from the WhatsApp platform, hence cannot know what is happening.
On Monday at a press conference she accused the LP National Chairman, Barrister Julius Abure, of mismanaging N3.5bn raised from the sale of nomination forms and fundraising activities in the build-up to the 2023 general election.
Also, on Tuesday while speaking on Arise TV’s ‘Good Morning Show’, Oparah claimed that the Abure-led NWC is working hand-in-hand with the Edo State Government which is governed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
However, at the Wednesday media briefing, the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Mr Obiora Ifoh, described Mrs Oparah is a mole who was being used by dissidents to cause disaffection in the party.
He said that the party decided to sanction her after she failed to honour an invitation by the party’s NWC to resolve the crisis.

At the Thursday’s briefing, Obi also appeal to various support groups or individuals or parties that received funding to support the campaign, for which they were grateful, to account to those they received it from.
He said, “Because there are some people, like support groups, there are some people even abroad who collected monies that they are going to use it in the north and everywhere. We were not stringent that everything you collect must come to us, but we want whatever is collected to be accounted for. This is why we are appealing to the public to let us know.”
On the part of Aisha Yesufu she said they spent N744.5m on litigation, received N595.9m from Nigerians
Mrs Yesufu who was the Chairman of the Fundraising Team of the Campaign Organisation said that it spent over N744,500,000.00 in litigation in courts over the 2023 presidential election.
She also said that it received donations totaling N595,976,994.00 from Nigerians.
“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 N8,000,000 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.
“We deployed N744,500,000.00 to cover legal expenses. And then, in campaign and election activities, we had over N28,500,000.00. On the issue of legal fees, remember what I said earlier: We had N800,000,000.00 that the candidate himself brought,” Yesufu said.
“We had a campaign crowd funding where Nigerians were asked to donate to the Obi/Datta campaign for the 2023 general election.
“Today we are having that campaign fundraising report presentation. Accountability and transparency is very critical and it is very important.
“At anytime we asked people to donate and they do willingly it is very important to come back to them and show them how their monies were judiciously used.
“The Mandate of the crowd fund raising team was as follows,
His Excellency Peter Obi gave the following mandate to the the team and that was to raise funding from Nigerians using the campaign’s official account and to ensure funds are judiciously.