. Says they’re hired to discredit Obi
Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
A support group of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, and his running mate, Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Obi-Datti organisation, has urged media houses in the country to stop referring to Chief Lamidi Apapa and Dr Abayomi Arambabi as the National Chairman and Spokesman of the Labour Party.
The group in a strong worded press statement dismissed the duo as political hirelings recruited by Obi’s detractors to pull down the LP presidential flag bearer.
According to the statement signed by Dr Tanko Yunusa, Chief Spokesman for Obi-Datti Campaign Organisation, the duo are impostors parading with fake identities as LP members.
The statement urged media houses who still refer to the duo as LP members to stop misinforming the public.
Citing the supreme court judgment that decided on the factionalisation of LP, the statement said there is no more faction in the party, describing anyone claiming to be a faction of the party as an impostor.
The statement urged members of the public to disregard the duo as they have nothing to do with Labour Party any more.
Below is a full text of the statement made available to Ikengaonline:
“I have called you this afternoon to bring to your notice some unbecoming and vexatious attitude in the public space that is, unfortunately dragging some media houses along.
“Some political hirelings, buccaneers indulging in menial work of character assassination have lately been let loose dubiously ostensibly to soil the name of our Presidential candidate, Peter Obi. At the forefront of these malicious hatchet jobbers, is Dr Abayomi Arambabi, who dubiously continues even to identify himself as a member and Publicity Secretary of Labour Party when he knows he is not a member of the party.
“After a series of judgments from the Supreme Court of Nigeria concerning the Labour Party, everything about fictionalisation and crisis in the party was laid to rest.
“But to our greatest shock in the party, many media houses continued to link expelled non-members of the party as members trying unsuccessfully and needlessly to create a wrong impression about the party.
“Chief Lamidi Apapa and Arambabi have been going about merchandising with the name of the party and endlessly castigating our flag bearer who we are proud to say is the most popular and loved Nigerian politician today.
“As they go about using the name of the party, none of them has said anything positive about Peter Obi as the presidential candidate of the party they claim. That speaks in volumes.
“Instead, they have even been more vociferous against Peter Obi than their sponsors yet they claim they are of the Labour Party. Is it not time the media houses blacklist them for wearing the devil’s coat and speaking on the saint’s platform. None of them or their family members voted for Peter Obi. Is it not yet time they leave him alone and look for another thing to say?
“Peter Obi in his capacity as the Labour Party standard bearer, had a press conference and innocuously advised the embattled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rest the certificate gate around him and save the country further embarrassment by reintroducing himself and putting records straight. A simple patriotic advisory that was informed by belief in anything that is connected to National development, but their hirelings, freebooters, and lawless adventurers prefer to insult our candidate with his fabrications.
“In one of his pieces of fiction, they claimed that Obi was impersonating his dead most senior brother, a farce, a slapstick comedy from hell. Obi’s most senior brother is alive, one of his senior brothers who died was in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN years ahead of Obi and read Computer Science while Obi read Philosophy.
“Arambabi also claims as his shadow chases him that Obi is after his life. This is a laughable allegation because Obi’s harmless disposition to politics and his non-violent posture even in extreme provocation like the blatant stealing of his mandate in cohort with INEC is apparent to make the dismissal of such wild and unsubstantiated accusation baseless.
“Gentlemen of the press, I can appreciate the frustration of somebody hired ostensibly to do a menial job against somebody and after sweeping around the whole place unable to find anything, he decides to indulge in concoctions to keep his pecuniary interest alive.
“As Obi keeps charging people to go ahead and verify his past, a Peter Obi 45 years ago was impromptly unveiled last weekend by no less a person than the Pope’s Ambassador (Papal Nuncio) to the Czech Republic, a Nigerian, Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo. Speaking off the cuff, the revered clergy testified to how the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, has remained consistent in caring for society for many decades now, stating that it is in Peter Obi’s nature to help and care for those around him.”
