I have no “bullion Van” history of questionable wealth – Obi tackles Tinubu
The Obi-Datti Media Office has criticized the Pro-Bola Tinubu group for calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, over raising from the diaspora.
The Obi-Datti Media said his principal has no bullion van history of questionable wealth and is ready and willing to be scrutinized.
The Tinubu-Shettima All Progressives Congress Presidential ticket had called the INEC to disqualify Peter Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, over violating the Electoral Act on election funding.
But Obi-Datti Media Office said the claim of Obi violating the electoral act by the Tinubu group is baseless.
The Obi group said that the structure-less and social media candidates are now the headache of the ruling party. They now had to fabricate and imagine things they wanted the electoral Commission to act on.
While dismissing the claim as “desolate and baseless,” the Obi-Datti Media Office, in a statement made available to newsmen, in Abuja, on Sunday, said the pro- Tinubu group has suddenly realized the futility of their plan to carry on with election business as usual.
The statement read in part, “All of a sudden, the structure-less and social media candidates are now the headache of the ruling party that they now had to fabricate and imagine things they want the electoral Commission to act on.
“Obi’s successful trip abroad, which is ostensibly to sensitize and carry along Nigerians aboard on his upcoming agenda of rebuilding the country, is open and transparent and not fundraising.
“But we know why it’s discomforting some people because they cannot meet Nigerians in diaspora knowing they contributed to their leaving the country in the first place.
“We have always said it umpteenth times that their own understanding of structure is the abundance of looted funds in their kitty that they plan to deploy on hungry Nigerian voters during the election to sway their votes.”
It further said, “They know nobody has the kind of stolen funds they have and are always uncomfortable at anything suggesting to them that their opponents could match them.
“Obi did not go to beg for money but to sell himself and his mission to Nigerians outside the shores who are critical stakeholders in the Nigeria project.
“Since June 2022, when they deployed a lump of their loots to get their party’s ticket, the nation’s currency crashed and they are still battling for breath. And since then, they have been mopping up foreign currencies ahead of the election to buy voters.
“The Media office, therefore, needs to educate them that Obi and his Running mate are the knowledgeable duos who know the law and operate within it and who became what they are financially, politically and socially doing legitimate businesses.
“They have no bullion van history of questionable wealth and are ready and willing to be scrutinized.
“Just as Obi and Datti’s backgrounds and antecedents are verifiable, so their source of income before and now are unambiguous and auditable.
“Obi and Datti reached where they are today in this 2023 journey giving no ‘shishi’ to anybody because they are investing in the suffering Nigerians impoverished by the greedy leaders of the past who diverted public funds to their private and family pockets.
“We understand their predicament, the dearth of contents from their principal, the lack of what to market, using the ample opportunity provided by the campaigns and the resort to searching blindly for reasons to disqualify the people’s only hope for a new and better Nigeria.
“Suddenly, they are beginning to realize that the social media giant, the structure-less and inconsequential candidates, are in the heart of the people, convinced by their pragmatic messages. In frustration and envy, they are now desperately looking for all crooked ways to stop them.
“We like to advise all those in this school of thought that the old order that kept us down as a nation will still work, to read the writing on the wall and know that their time is up and that Nigerians are ready and determined to take back their county now. “