By Ogochukwu Isioma
Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi has disowned the purported telephone conversation allegedly between him and Bishop David Oyedepo, founder and president of Living Faith Church, aka Winners Chapel.
In the purported telephone conversation, Obi and Oyedepo can be heard discussing ahead of the disputed presidential poll about the Christian voting community in Southwest and Kwara state, and how to get them to support the ex-Anambra governor.
“Daddy, I need you to speak to your people in the South-West and Kwara, the Christians in the South-West and Kwara. This is a religious war. Like I keep saying: if this works, you people will never regret the support,” Obi said in the audio, to which Oyedepo replied, “I believe that!.”
Reacting to the audio, however, Obi said the recording is a product of the endless forgeries peculiar to the All Progressives Congress (APC) meant to serve no other purpose than egregious mischief aimed at demarketing him, noting that the ruling party’s “endless subterfuge must stop.”
The LP presidential candidate who spoke through the Head of the Obi/Datti Media Office, Diran Onifade, in Abuja, on Sunday, said the APC has resorted to “mischief” and “endless subterfuge” in a bid to continue to hold on to a ”stolen mandate”, more than a month after the general elections.
Obi said, “While we are toeing the constitutional path to retrieve our mandate, those who have truncated the wishes of the majority of Nigerians have recoursed to mischief and endless subterfuge to continue to hold on to what they know does not belong to them.
“From the show of shame in Port Harcourt to the drama in the Ibom Air aircraft, both of which they contrived, they have now moved to the circulation of a deep fake audio file aimed at promoting religious tension in the country.
“All these are meant to serve no other purpose than egregious mischief aimed at demarketing Peter Obi. If the goal is to create a credibility problem, the ploy has failed woefully. Peter Obi has long been on record as the only presidential candidate who has urged the Nigerians electorate not to vote for him on the basis of religion or tribe.
“We will therefore like to advice our beloved Nigerian people to remain focused on the task to take back the mandate we know was freely given to Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed through legitimate means.
“That is more important than to expect those who ran election on forged credentials and even fake Bishops to stop faking. They cannot stop being fraudulent because that is who they are.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Oyedepo has equally distanced himself from the trending telephone conversation, saying he has never campaigned for any politician during any election in the country.
The respected Christian cleric said this on Sunday at the church’s headquarters, Canaan Land in Ogun State, while speaking on the subject of Faith, according to a report by DailyTrust.
“Nobody had ever told me what to say in this world. No. I have never campaigned for anybody or speak on anybody’s behalf and I will not do that till I go to heaven,” Oyedepo was quoted as saying.
“There is no (political) party in this country that didn’t come to me for prayers and for advice. I advised them, some, they didn’t take. Those who chose to take it, they see results; those who said no, they are going about it (laughs). If you still come again, I will still tell you, it doesn’t change.”
