9 months ago
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Following the call by Peter Obi for the complete forensic audit of the 2023 presidential campaign funds of the Labour Party (LP), the opposition party has assured that the recommendation by its presidential candidate has not been discarded.
Recall that the National Treasurer of LP, Oluchi Opara (now suspended), had challenged the National Chairman, Julius Abure, to account for an alleged N3.5 billion raised from the sale of nomination forms and fundraising activities in the build-up to the 2023 general elections.
Opara also accused Abure of refusing to remit the donations received from Nigerians in the Diaspora during Obi’s election campaign tour in the United States.
But Abure denied all her allegations when he was featured as a guest on Arise News after the allegation.
Due to the controversy it generated, Obi called for an audit of the party’s account to clear the air.
However, one month after Obi and other party stakeholders made the recommendation, nothing was heard about the case.
But spokespersons of the Labour Party have assured The PUNCH that the audit will be carried out.
This was confirmed in two separate interviews with the Chief Spokesman for the Labour Party Campaign Organisation, Yunusa Tanko, and the National Publicity Secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh.
When contacted, Tanko reassured that the matter had not been swept under the carpet as speculated.
He said, “That particular process is still on. What is needed now is just to make the books (account) available, and we will take it from there. It is an ongoing issue.
“Don’t also forget that INEC itself has conducted its own audit of the account of every political party. They always send their internal auditors to audit every account and publish the outcome. Nobody is sweeping anything under the carpet as you alleged.”
On his part, Ifoh said: “We must state clearly that our leader Peter Obi made reference to the audit of the campaign account and not the forensic audit for the Labour Party. In any case, we have stated clearly that the party is open to a forensic audit of its accounts.
“We are even calling on the NLC to send its own external auditors to check our financial books. We are also calling on Peter Obi to expedite action on the auditing of our accounts.”
