The emergence of the former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi as the flag bearer of the Labour Party for the 2023 presidential election has generated many controversies. At the beginning, the PDP and APC, the two major political parties in the country had laughed away Obi’s candidature caricaturing it as the president for Igbo country. When Obi’s popularity soared and became almost a tsunami across the airwaves in Nigeria, these parties and their supporters took notice but still dismissed it as “empty and noisy online bots.”
However, with the recent shows of force of Obi’s supporters through what they call “a million Man Marches” for Obi and Dati that have taken place across many major cities in Nigeria, it looks like Obi’s popularity is sinking home and his opponents are becoming jittery.
Therefore, the most recent rebuttals of this gradual but steady rise of Obi’s political profile are that the Labour Party doesn’t have the prerequisite structure to win presidential election in Nigeria. It is also claimed that democratic election is costly and as such even if the youths clamoring for Obi are able to create the structure; neither Obi nor the Labour Party has the huge amount of resources required to fund such structure.
The Labour Party has been fighting hard to counter especially the claim that it lacks structures. They have consistently argued that the people are the structure and as long as Obi and the party have the people behind them, they have the structure. In fact, there is every reason to believe that one of the reasons the One Million Man March for Obi was initiated was to demonstrate to demonstrate to the doubting Thomases that the people are the structure. From all indications, the march is having the desired effect. It has even prompted the oppositions to initiate their own support marches. Supporters of the PDP have marched in Calabar and other cities while supporters of the APC have been marching almost every other day in Lagos and periodically in other cities especially in the north.
The other tactics Obi and the Labour Party have used to fight the accusation that they lack structure have been to demonize the concept of structure. Thus, it has been argued that the structures PDP and APC talk about are the election rigging machineries the duo have used over the years to disenfranchise Nigerians. Again, this counteroffensive appeared to be effective. Since it started, lack of structure no longer seems to be at the front burner of PDP and APC’s attack on the Labour Party.
However, the claim that sticks and that seems to be given both Obi and the Labour Party sleepless night is the accusation that the party does not have the required resources to fund a presidential election in a competition where money bags like Atiku and Tinubu are involved.
For instance, Isaac Fayose, the younger brother of the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, has said in a recent interview that Obi’s online popularity is not enough to ensure his victory in 2023, stressing that he needs N50 billion to defeat the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu. Isaac Fayose says, “Out of all the candidates, Obi is the most popular. If we vote today on social media, he will win but an election is structure-based. Therefore, Obi will need N50 billion to be able to make that government a reality. Fifty billion, yes, Obi will win. Remember, Tinubu is a little bit popular too. He has what they call structure. The structure alone is worth fifty billion. He has what they call goodwill. They call him ‘The City Boy’. So ‘where him money no fit reach, him structure go reach, where him structure no fit reach, him popularity go reach. Obi, with fifty billion, will manage to buy his own army to defeat Tinubu.”
Therefore, the need to raise fund to finance his election is reported to be one of the reasons Obi is on his current trips to Europe and North America. Speculations are that Obi is meeting with Nigerians in diaspora to solicit their financial support for his presidential bid. It’s been reported that Nigerians in the diaspora have formed committees to create a crowd funding portal to raise $150 million from Obi’s supporters in the diaspora and ₦100 billion from those in Nigeria.
Since this news filtered on air, many legal analysts have weighed in to argue that such funding would contravenes not only the 1999 Constitution but also the new Electoral Acts. For instance, Okoi Obono Obla a lawyer and legal analyst had argued that:
“The inauguration of a diaspora committee by the Labour party to raise funds from Nigerians living abroad to prosecute its presidential campaign is illegal. According to him “The Nigeria electoral law forbids political parties from raising funds from abroad to use to finance their electioneering campaigns or elections. Section 85 of the Electoral Act is explicit… on this. Additionally, a candidate or political must be wary of accepting money or fund from abroad. Doing that may expose a candidate or political party to an investigation for money laundering. The law concerning money laundering is strict. A political party or candidate receives campaign funds from a criminal syndicate or corrupt people, arms traffickers, human trafficking, drug traffickers, etc., and runs the risk of a money laundering or terrorism financing investigation in Nigeria or abroad.
Also, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami was reported to have threatened that those who raise money from abroad to sponsor election in Nigeria would be prosecuted. Furthermore, a group, Tinubu-Shettima Connect, recently asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the former Anambra Governor over the alleged funding, which according to them, violates the Electoral Act.
Obi on his own has denied any wrongdoing. “Nobody has given me anything. That is speculation. What I need is not what they would give me but what they would give Nigeria, because we need them to turn around Nigeria. This is the energy, the capacity that we need to turn around Nigeria. Every country that was turned around, was done by the diaspora. Even in the Bible, Joseph who left later came back to feed his people,” he said.
Did Obi violate the new Electoral Act?
What exactly does the Electoral Act say about getting fund from abroad?
Have the opposition finally nailed Obi?
What are the opinions of legal experts on this?
Find in our next article.
