By Chioma Nnodim

The Obi-Datti Media Office has described as baseless allegation by a support group of Tinubu-Shettima calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi and his running mate, Ahmed Baba Datti from the 2023 presidential election for allegedly violating a section of Electoral Act on Election funding.

A statement by the media office noted that 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.”

It noted that Obi’s trip abroad which is ostensibly to sensitize and carry along Nigerians abroad on his upcoming agenda of rebuilding the country is open and transparent and not a fund raising.

The statement noted further, “But we know why it’s discomforting some people, because they cannot meet Nigerians in Diaspora knowing that 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.

“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 that they deployed a lump of their loot to get the ticket of their party, the nation’s currency crashed and is 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 knowledgeable duo 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 backgrounds and antecedents are verifiable, so also is 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”, the statement read.