Presidential Election Litigation: Plot Against Obi Thickens

By Akinjide Aina

Following the sudden eruption of a leadership crisis in the Labour Party, multiple sources have confirmed to this magazine that the Presidential candidate of the party in the February 25th presidential election and former Governor of Anambra state, His Excellency, Peter Obi, is the main target.

Apart from alleged financial inducements, members of the Labour Party’s National Working Committee, NWC who agreed to lend themselves to the plot, it has been learnt, have been promised juicy positions if the next government is (eventually) inaugurated.

Elements within the ruling party who believe Obi’s petition at the Election Petition Tribunal is a time bomb that will eventually consume the party, if not checked, this magazine has been informed, are desperately engaged in acts aimed at rendering the petition a stillborn.

A source privy to the plot told the Magazine that  “the first phase of the plot has been hatched and accomplished and this was getting a phantom faction of Labour party in its National Chairman, Julius Abure’s ward in Edo state to suspend him.

“The second part which has also been accomplished was to, allegedly, get a pliant judge to give a ruling restraining Abure from parading himself as the National Chairman on the strength of his “suspension”. This was to pave the way for the assumption of office as “Acting National Chairman” of a lackey of the ruling party who would in turn trigger series of actions aimed at undermining Obi’s case at the tribunal”

The Source (Magazine) authoritatively gathered that the next phase of the plot will see a replay of the Abure scenario in Anambra.

According to another source, “In the coming days, the anti-Obi elements will shift to Anambra to commence the most critical phase of the plot to undermine the Labour Party’s petition at the presidential petition tribunal.

“The Anambra operation is to be coordinated by a Lagos-based indigene of the State who is also a member of the ruling party and known for his slavish and fanatical loyalty to the Southwest political establishment, rabid anti-Igbo rhetorics and lately a trenchant critic of Obi, the Obi-Datti movement and the Labour party.

“His job is to create a phantom faction in the Anambra state chapter of the party, get a factional State Chairman to lay claim to the office, create a phantom factional ward executive of the Labour party in Obi’s Agulu community and get them to expel Obi from the party for “anti-party activities”

“A pliant Judge in the State, especially, in Awka, the State capital, will then be procured to give a legal seal to the charade”

With Obi’s “expulsion”, the source continued, “the character parading himself as Labour Party’s Acting  National Chairman will then call a world press conference to announce the party’s discontinuation of the Presidential Election legal tussle and withdrawal of the petition at the Tribunal on the ground that its Presidential Candidate has ceased to be a member of the party”