BREAKING: Tinubu Group Petitions INEC to Disqualify Peter Obi Over Source of $150M

BY: News Peddlers 

Tinubu-Shettima Connect has petitioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, from the 2023 presidential election due to alleged violations of the Electoral Act.

On Friday, September 2, 2022, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, inaugurated an 11-man Diaspora Committee to organize fund-raising activities for the Obi-Datti ticket, among other things.

The inauguration came a day after the party's Diaspora support groups pledged to crowdfund $150 million for Obi, with another N100 billion coming from supporters in Nigeria, according to the Daily Trust.

In response to the development, the Tinubu-Shettima Connect noted that the Labour Party's move was a blatant violation of the Electoral Act on campaign funding.

The group stated in a statement issued and signed by its convener, Adebanjo Moyosore, on Saturday, September 3, 2022, that it was not only illegal to raise campaign funds from abroad through unknown sources or unidentified groups, but that there were also consequences and implications for such an act.

It also promised to file a legal action to prevent the Labour Party from running in the 2023 presidential election as punishment for violating the Electoral Act.

Moyosore contended that the Labour Party leadership's formation of a Diaspora committee to raise campaign funds from Nigerians in diaspora for Obi's presidential bid was not only "illegal but also criminal."

The statement said “Section 85 of the Electoral Act has clearly explained this; Section 85 (a) (b) provides that any political party that: (a) holds or possesses any fund outside Nigeria in contravention of section 225 (3) (a) of the constitution, commits an offence and shall, on conviction, forfeit the funds or assets purchased with such funds to the commission, and in addition, may be liable to a fine of at least N5million, or (b) retain any fund or other asset remitted to it from outside Nigeria in contravention of section 225.”