‘Obi Was Never Against June 12 Struggle’

The Obi-Datti Movement yesterday said the Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi was never opposed to the June 12 struggle contrary to claims in a report.

Head of Obi-Datti media, Diran Onifade, stated this in a statement titled “Re: Peter Obi and NADECO/Democracy Day-Yet another failed blackmail.“

He was reacting to an article which claimed Obi was against the June 12 struggle because he associated with the then military dictator, Gen Sani Abacha, who refused to allow Chief MKO Abiola to claim his presidential mandate at the time. 

Onifade who said Obi was never directly or indirectly involved in the activities of the June 12 struggle, added that as of 1993, Obi who was not a politician admired and voted for late Chief MKO Abiola through late former Senate President Dr. Chuba Okadigbo whom he also admired.

He added that Obi soon after the election relocated to the United Kingdom with his family where he ran his business.

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The spokesman of the Obi-Datti media  said, “This is the man (Obi) some hirelings are making fruitless efforts to dent his image by fabricating lies against him including saying that he was against June 12 when he was not even resident in Nigeria during the June 12 imbroglio but leaving in the United Kingdom and could not have been involved as the faceless writer dubiously wanted the gullible public to believe.

“Such brazen sunken story ordinarily should not deserve our response but for the credulous public that May not be privy to these facts. And, because of the level of distortions of facts in the write-up, the mischievous story has no byline.”

“Obi-Datti Media office is well aware of the renewed activities of some well-mobilized mercenaries given the arduous task of de-marketing the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi.

“The motive which is well known to us is to dent his profile and diminish his rising profile, which stands him out as one of the most outstanding Nigerian democrats today whose belief in the rule of law and non-violence policy remains remarkable.

“The writer, unable to appreciate the outstanding principles in Obi, tries to equate him with his Principal, who only joined the NADECO struggle as an afterthought and only after fruitless and failed lobby to serve in Gen. Sani Abacha’s government. Since the former Chief Security Officer CSO to the late military Head of state revealed this fact, nobody within his orbit ever tried denying it to avoid unearthing further concrete details.

“Unlike their sponsors, Peter Obi is riding high on his uncommon principles, which remain verifiable. The Obi-Datti Media office will therefore like to urge members of the reading public to treat this recent drivel as a malicious effigy of the author’s warped and clever-by-half imagination that should be consigned to the trash when it rightly belongs,” he said.

Onifade added, “The reputation Obi took in the business that stood him out was what he, later on, took into politics. Before becoming Governor he never worked or held any government position. He never worked in Nigeria Ports Authority.

“The closest he came to late General Sani Abacha’s government was when his petition on port inefficiency and congestion made his colleagues in businesses draft into the special committee on port reform that lasted for just three months.

“Whatever status Obi is enjoying today within and outside the country is due to the high integrity he brought into what he does whether in business or politics.

After eight years of outstanding governance to the people of Anambra state, where he created a sustainable environment for development by providing basic infrastructure to the people, access to rural agrarian communities, clearing inherited pension and salary arrears of over a 32billion, leaving office not owing any salary, pension, or contractors, and leaving office with huge investments, plus a savings of over $150m and 35millions of naira in various Nigerian banks, Obi stood out as good governance model using Human Development Index, HDI, and was outstanding in millennium  Development Goals that attracted International agencies. His good governance delivery plus transparency in the deployment of public funds earned him the Governor of the Decade recognition as assessed by editors in the country.

“Since leaving office nearly 10 years ago, Obi continues to say that Anambra state has not bought him a bottle of water because he is not into the after-office largesse that most of his colleagues covet for themselves. This is because he refused to sign into law anything aimed at benefitting personally.

“Before becoming a state Governor, Obi had emerged as the youngest Nigerian to chair a post-consolidation bank and served in various other firms as director where he was nominated based on his management and fiscal prudence reputation.”