The national treasurer, Oluchi Opara, has accused chairman Julius Abure of financial misconduct. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, has demanded that these allegations be looked into.
On Thursday, February 15, Obi gave a report on the funding of the 2023 Obi-Datti Presidential campaign organization during a media event.
According to Obi, the party has started the process of auditing its finances for the sake of its involvement in the general elections in 2023.
I don’t believe my delay was excessive. When was the election held? It occurred in February of last year. We then proceeded with the lawsuit, which was concluded in November, so I was unable to continue testifying in court on the Labour Party account at that time. Following that, we began even from all the campaign operations in December 2022 and continued through the end of 2023, Obi stated.
“We are only in the first quarter of 2024,” he said. This, I believe, has never occurred with any other party in Nigeria. Give me an example. In Nigeria, we’re accustomed to shunning people who wish to act morally and rewarding those who have committed wrongdoing for a long time.
As of right now, we are accounting for the first quarter of 2024. The process is new to us. Last year, I was unable to call auditors. We won’t give them a call and do everything.
Aisha Yesufu, the campaign organization’s chair of the fundraising team, also spoke at the press conference and stated that the 2023 presidential election cost about N744,500,000 in legal fees.
“I’m not a part of the party management or accounting for the party. You are aware that the National Working Committee, an elected body to which I do not belong, is in charge of running a party.
“I am not a signatory to anything, not even the accounts campaign. I do not have any group account signatures. Everything is under control. I deposited the money that people provided me into one or more carefully monitored accounts. We will account for everything, I promise you. We are thus requesting that everyone in the public, both domestically and abroad, provide information on the source of these billions and millions of dollars, or even consider making a financial payment to someone.
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Because some of our supporters covered the costs of flights, transportation, and logistics, we received more help in kind than in cash.
“I have explained the Labour Party’s approach to solving this problem; we won’t use the ‘he said, she said’ tactic. Now that we have an impartial party, we can decide how to proceed.
Speaking at the ceremony, Aisha Yesufu, the campaign organization’s chair of fundraising, said that after the 2023 presidential election, the organization had spent approximately N744,500,000.00 on legal cases.
Yesufu revealed that donations totaling N595,976,994 were received by the campaign organization.
“Transparency and accountability are crucial, which is why we asked for donations so that we could follow up with donors and let them know how their money was wisely spent.” We appreciate all of the generous financial and kind donations. Our total donation from the public was N595,976,994. This is the total amount we were able to raise from the four accounts we previously discussed. Additionally, N8,000,000 was given to us by Peter Obi, the candidate,” declared Yesufu.
In order to channel the movement’s energy and support for Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed with various support groups, we created a strategic roadmap. We helped more than a hundred support groups in all 36 states of Nigeria, both directly and indirectly.
We also used social media, community outreach, and over 40 radio stations to launch media-related initiatives that reached over 11 million people.
“We were careful to spend the monies that we received sparingly because of our financial limits, even though we would have loved to use televisions and everything of that.
Thus, campaign materials totaling N258,374,330.00 were purchased with these funds and delivered to all 36 states as well as Abuja. The cost of media and radio broadcasting was N16,432,867.00.
“We had N10,808,948.00 for election promotion expenses.” We paid N324,381,700.00 for Polling Unit Agents. Naturally, we also incurred bank charges totaling N1,750,544.00.
“We also incurred N477,000.00 in administrative expenses.” We have N744,500,000.00 set enough to pay for legal fees. Then, we used more than N28,500,000.00 on election and campaign-related activities. Regarding the legal fees, keep in mind what I have stated: the candidate personally brought N800,000,000.00,” Yesufu continued.
