There are indications that the campaigns that would usher in Nigeria’s next president might get messy as there are allegations of a planned assassination attempt on the Labour Party flag bearer, Peter Obi.
Reacting to the reports, the Director of Media and Public Affairs and Official Spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress, APC, Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo said that the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, was planning to fake an assassination attempt on himself and hire some supporters dressed in APC caps and shirts to attack his party’s offices.
Keyamo made the allegations in a statement issued on Monday.
He had earlier accused Obi of circulating a hate-filled video online to soil the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
This is coming after Obi accused Nigerians of being blinded by Tinubu’s money and choosing to vote for him despite the fact that he is ill.
While challenging Obi to reveal the source and name(s) of the culprits behind the nebulous WhatsApp message he mentioned in the video, the minister noted that it was obvious Obi deliberately concocted the message and circulated the offensive video himself as a campaign strategy.
Festus Keyamo said, “Our attention has been drawn to an offensive, hate-filled video made and circulated by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, in which he accused an amorphous and non-existent “Tinubu’s Group” of spreading a WhatsApp message calling on the Yoruba people not to vote for him.
“The purported message, according to Mr. Obi, forewarned the Yoruba that a vote for Obi would be a vote for a seaport in South-South and South-East.
“We are also aware that plans are afoot by Mr. Peter Obi to fake an assassination attempt on himself and hire Labour Party boys dressed in the APC caps and T-shirts to attack some Labour Party offices. It is all part of the “US Plan”. It is the first in a series of incendiary actions planned by this ill-prepared but desperate candidate.”
Speaking further, Keyamo denied the existence of any Tinubu group warning people not to vote for Obi.
He argued that Nigerians have finally begun to sense that Obi’s ideas lack depth and clear-cut solutions to Nigeria’s problems.
He noted that the LP flag bearer’s messages are simply full of false data and jargons which is meant to distract a scrutiny of his empty records as a Governor of Anambra State and nothing else and this is the reason he has chosen to play the ethnic card.
Keyamo insisted that information reaching them has stated that the video is a strategy of Obi to spread ethnic hatred amongst the voters and later claim victim.
“We find it utterly disgusting, demeaning and insulting to the sensitivities and sensibilities of Nigerians for a presidential candidate of the ilk of Peter Obi to make such a video parroting a spurious, unverified and sham message that has the potential of deepening our fault lines as a nation and further promoting ethnic tensions. This is completely unbecoming of a presidential candidate that hopes to unite this country.
“Again, we note that Mr. OBJ’s latest stunt is consistent with what is now widely perceived as his adoption of hate as campaign strategy, having consistently failed to rein in his known and identifiable supporters, mostly domiciled on social media, threatening political opponents with violence and death,” he said.
He subsequently called on Nigerians to condemn Obi’s actions.