Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party has reacted to a photo circulating online of him and the factional leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Simon Ekpa.
Ekpa, a Nigerian who resides in Finland, has been calling for a sit-at-home in the South East to protest the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
In the viral image, co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement and supporter of former Anambra governor, Aisha Yesufu, is seen in the background.
The Obi-Datti Media Office, in a statement signed by Diran Onifade on Thursday, said the picture was photoshopped from a photo Obi took with a supporter on Virgin Atlantic aircraft on July 21.
It referred to the photo as a desperate move to drag Obi’s name into disrepute by linking him with the ugly story that Ekpa has become in Nigeria.
The statement reads, “Obi-Datti Media office notes that the scenario is exactly what played out in the photoshopped picture of the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi supposedly standing with the Finland-based irritant Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa all in a desperate move to drag Obi’s name into disrepute by linking him with the ugly story that Ekpa has become in Nigeria.
“For clarity, the picture was taken by Obi standing with an admirer on a Virgin Flight on Friday, July 21, 2023. In trying to authenticate their filthy and disgustingly dirty act, they inserted the picture of Aisha Yusuf behind them.
“The memory may be short to forget that Obi was the first to describe the sit-at-home thing as an act being engineered and bred by a criminal that the system has refused to squarely tackle.
“Now that the menace of this crime is becoming manifest even to attract the views of the nation’s parliament, it may be necessary to critically study the handling of this crime.”