Peter Obi, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party singlehandedly paid the legal bill that arose from last year’s presidential election for this party, the party has said.
The LP presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election paid close to N800 million for this purpose, the party said yesterday.
This was made known on Thursday by Aisha Yesufu, the chairperson of the Obi-Datti Fundraising Team while giving account of how money was raised and spent during the campaign.
The revelation comes on the heels of counter allegations over alleged financial misappropriation against the National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure.
Abure was accused of misappropriating over N3.5 billion raised to prosecute the election by the party National Treasurer, Ozuchi Opara, an allegation that has been denied by the Chairman.
The party’s presidential candidate has demanded a thorough probe of the allegation.
The party lost the election as its candidate came third in the election won by the incumbent President Bola Tinubu.
LP later went to challenge the election results from the Tribunal to the Supreme Court. The party lost all the litigations up to the nation’s apex court.
Speaking on the expenses incurred before, during and after the election Yesufu noted that close to N1 billion was realized from donations, while Obi also donated N800 million out of which N744 million was spent to offset the litigations arising from the election.
“For the election promotion expenses, we had N10,808,948 and deployed N744,500,000 to cover legal expenses. We thank everyone who donated in cash and kindness.”, Yesufu said.
Obi, who garnered 6,101,533 votes to emerge third in the February 25, 2023 presidential election won by Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, along with the Labour Party, rejected the results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
