Peter Obi Wades Into Escalating Crisis in Labour Party, Calls for Auditing Of 2023 Poll Campaign Fund

Labour Party 2023 poll presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has intervened in the crisis in the party’s national working committee over the party’s 2023 poll campaign fund.

Obi wants the campaign fund to be audited to clear the corruption allegation levelled against the National Chairman, Julius Abure.

The party’s National Treasurer, Oluchi Opara, last Monday had convened a news conference in Abuja, accusing Abure of failing to account for N3.5 billion.

She explained that the N3.5 billion was part of the proceeds of nomination forms sold to aspirants and from fundraising before the 2023 polls.

But the national working committee instead of investigating the allegation, suspended the treasurer.

The national working committee, cleared Abure of the allegation while accusing the treasurer of failing to appear before a committee set up to hear her petition.

Read Also:

Faction of Ohaneze Ndigbo Cautiones Labour Party against Planned Merger with the PDP and NNPP

Chairman of the Fund Raising Team of the Obi-Datti Campaign Organization, Aisha Yesufu, who rendered an account of funds raised and spent during the campaign, explained that a total of N595,976,994.00 was received from Nigerians as donations.

She, however, explained that there were over N744,500,000.00 in litigations over the 2023 presidential election.

Yesufu said that accountability and transparency are critical; 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 N800,000,000 from the candidate himself (Peter Obi).

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.

She further said, 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.