A non governmental organisation, Global Network for Sustainable Development (GNSD) described the leaked telephone conversation between the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and the founder of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo, as an invasion of their privacy.
In the audio clip, Obi asked Oyedepo to help spread his message to Christians in the South-west and parts of North-central. Addressing him as “daddy”, the LP’s standard-bearer told Oyedepo that the just concluded presidential election was a “religious war.”
The convener, GNSD, Amb. Phil Roberts, also asked the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to press charges against those who leaked and doctored his telephone conversation with Bishop Oyedepo.
Roberts said with incidents like this, one may be forced to ask how safe are Nigerians’ telephone conversations.
He, however, condemned in strong terms the unnecessary heating up of the polity about the purported leaked audio conversation between Obi and Oyedepo.
For the record, he said Obi’s team has since discredited the said audio conversation.
“His media aide, Valentine Obienyem made it clear in a statement on Sunday, that his principal’s conversation with Oyedepo was ‘badly doctored’. So, why the noise?
“But even if the purported conversation were to be true, key political actors have made bigoted statements in both the past and the present, and today, we still see them in power, and no one is denigrating them,” he added.
He added that those who leaked the purported telephone conversation acted in breach of a citizen’s confidentiality and right to privacy, and it is malicious, callous, and criminal.