The Presidential Campaign Council of the Labor Party has said Peter Obi has been under immense pressure to leave the country and go on exile.
According to the council, Obi repeatedly been told that he has a choice to leave Nigeria or face the prospect of being arrested on false charges of inciting insurrection.
The chief spokesperson, Obi-Datti Campaign Council, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, disclosed this on Wednesday night in Abuja.
According to him, in the past few weeks, Obi has been contacted by associates, elder statesmen, family and friends with concerns for his personal safety.
“These concerns have increased intensely in the last few days as immense pressure, has been mounted directly on Mr. Obi to leave the country, no doubt, from sources allied to the All-Progressive Congress (APC) and its agents in the security services.
“Mr Obi has been repeatedly and categorically told that he has a choice to leave Nigeria or face the prospect of being arrested on false charges of inciting insurrection in the country.
“It is difficult to fathom and regrettably unfortunate that state institutions have become part of a well calculated, deliberate and orchestrated campaign of calumny by the APC to discredit and delegitimize Mr Peter Obi and compel him to abandon his right to seek redress in court following the outcome of the last election which was adjudged both locally and internationally to have failed to meet any standard of credibility or fairness,” Tanko said.
He said as part of the grand design, some people are circulating a fake doctored audio call and that at no time throughout the campaign and now did Mr Peter Obi ever say, think or even imply that the 2023 election is or was a religious war.
He said, “It is very sad and wicked the attempts to manipulate Nigerians. Our legal team have been instructed to take appropriate legal actions against media outlets that make themselves willing tools in the hands of APC’s malicious propagandists.
“Despite the public denunciation of the fake audio call, its contents have been translated into other Nigerian languages and circulated in most parts of Northern Nigeria with some of our Moslem clerics deceived and instigated to use the contents for their sermons at various Mosques during the usual Friday prayers.
“This is a dangerous development at a time when the APC led-government and the APC party which have been awarded undeserved and unfair victory should be more concerned in addressing the ethnic and religious frictions unfortunately created by the outcome of the elections.”
Tanko also said that unsatisfied but determined to cause more problems, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, is on a tour of some selected countries to present an alternative story about the 2023 discredited election, and from his first statement in Washington have assumed the role of the courts by stating that Mr Obi has no pathway to victory.
“This is a direct intimidation of the courts and a waste of Nigerian taxpayers’ money.
“However, we want to make it clear to the APC party, APC led-government and its agents that Mr Peter Obi, a widely traveled man, has no intention to leave the country at this time irrespective of the pressure on him and his family. He is determined as he had stated in his first and only press conference after the election to challenge the outcome of the election and the process has begun. It is his fundamental right!
“While we call on all concerned Nigerians and the International Community to caution APC and the APC led-government to stop their nasty attacks, Mr Peter Obi’s focus and commitment to lawfully and peacefully retrieve our mandate to secure and unite our Nation, take Nigeria from consumption to production, pull millions of Nigerians out of multidimensional poverty especially in the North and jumpstart prosperity through agricultural, industrial and technological revolution remains unchanged.
“It is for this reasons that we appeal to revered religious leaders especially in the North not to be part of the grand design of the state apparatus to further increase the religious and ethnic divides in the country. Irrespective of the outcome of the court process, we have the obligation to strive for the peace and co-existence of all Nigerians,” he added.
He also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to rein in his officials at all levels as their actions or inactions could lead to unnecessary crisis in the country.
He said, “Elections are over, and we are in court to retrieve our stolen mandate. We reiterate that we are doing so through all lawful and peaceful options in line with our legal system and constitution, and we continue to implore all Nigerians to remain peaceful and law abiding.
“Those fixated with heating up the polity, creating divisions, tensions and hatred within and outside Nigeria should remember that Nigeria is our only country. Our focus should be on how to address the litany of challenges facing us such as deliberate non-adherence to election process, parlous state of our economy, unsustainable debt burden, lamentable unemployment and inflation, insecurity and multi-dimensional poverty.”