The presidential campaign council of the Labour Party has reacted to a report that its standard bearer, Peter Obi’s company in the United Kingdom, UK, was shut down by the authorities.
Some media reports recently published that the UK government has struck off Next International (UK) Limited, largely owned by Obi over failure to submit its annual accounts.
The report claimed that the said company failed to submit its annual accounts for the year 2020, hence, the company was struck off and dissolved in 2021.
Reacting on Thursday, Obi’s campaign team in a statement by Diran Onifade, Head of Media, Obi-Datti Media Office, told critics to verify facts and not falsify them.
The statement said Obi’s political enemies were rattled by his rising popularity and resorted to using unfounded reports about Next International (UK) Limited against him.
It noted that “In order that the huge human and material resources deployed to search and locate any negative against the high flying Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, is not seen to have been wasted, anything could be concocted to justify the efforts.
“We have watched with bemused skepticism as agents of the political opposition unsettled by the high rising profile of the Labour Party flag bearer, ran around and made fools of themselves over the Next International (UK) Limited being removed from the record in 2021.
“Ordinarily, this is the type of mischief and impishness that should deserve no response, but for the credulous in our midst who are the real target by this impairment.
“For the record, the entity was 99% owned by Next Nigeria International Ltd., and established as its buying office in the 90s and Peter Obi was its CEO.
“At the time Peter Obi became governor of Anambra State in 2006, his wife assumed management of the winding down of the company and about one year ago requested that the company be dissolved under the voluntary strike off of the entity on grounds of dissolution and being inoperational, which is normal in winding up an entity.
“Peter Obi has consistently maintained that he is no longer involved in any Next related business.
“When our Principal insists that you go and verify facts about him and the information he dishes out, it didn’t say go and falsify facts.
“The LP candidate, by his antecedents in Anambra state for eight years, in private ventures where he held sway, his records among the pack in this race for the Presidency puts him miles ahead in moral rating.”
Vanguard
