Our Reporter, Abuja with Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The Labour Party (LP) has accused the All Progressives Congress of trying to foist religious tension and political crisis on Nigeria.
This is as the Labour Party distanced its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, from a viral video of voice conversation purportedly between him and Bishop David Oyedepo, describing it as “a product of deep fake.”
A statement made available to Ikengaonline on Sunday said the ruling party is engaging in acts that are aimed at damaging the credibility of Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, whose mandate, they claimed, was stolen.
The statement titled, “APC’s Endless Subterfuge Must Stop,” signed by Diran Onifade, the Head of Obi-Datti Media, said the target of APC is to frustrate the Labour Party’s efforts to retrieve its mandate through constitutional means. It also claimed that the ruling party is desperate to retain power by all means possible hence it took to mischief to frustrate its opposition.
It read: “It appears the All Progressives Congress’ desperation to grab and retain power by foul means has refused to go away more than a month after they have grabbed the election as they planned.
“While we are toeing the constitutional path to retrieve our mandate, those who have truncated the wishes of the majority of Nigerians have recourse to mischief and endless subterfuge to continue to hold on to what they know does not belong to them.
“From the show of shame in Port Harcourt to the drama in the Ibom Air aircraft, both of which they contrived, they have now moved to the circulation of a deep fake audio file aimed at promoting religious tension in the country.
“All these are meant to serve no other purpose than egregious mischief aimed at demarketing Peter Obi. If the goal is to create a credibility problem, the ploy has failed woefully. Peter Obi has long been on record as the only presidential candidate who has urged the Nigerian electorate not to vote for him based on religion or tribe.
“We will therefore like to advise our beloved Nigerian people to remain focused on the task to take back the mandate we know was freely given to Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed through legitimate means.
“That is more important than to expect those who ran for election on forged credentials and even fake Bishops to stop faking. They cannot stop being fraudulent because that is who they are.”
