Imo: Labour Party Disowns Peter Obi’s Campaign Coordinator Inaugurated By Pat Utomi

The Labour Party’s leadership has issued a statement denying any involvement with the activities of the Imo State Coordinator for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organization, Fabian Ihekweme.

Naija News reports that the party’s national publicity secretary, Arabambi Abayomi, in a statement released in Abuja on Sunday, accused the embattled state chairman of the LP Campaign Organization of indulging in conspiracy and fraudulent acts.

Ihekweme was indicted with serial fraud by Abayomi for allegedly soliciting funds from individuals under false pretences with the express intention of undermining the party’s win in the general elections of 2023.

However, the Labour Party’s public relations team disapproved of the way Ihekweme is managing his Imo State platform, which is constitutionally supposed to receive orders but is acting autonomously beyond the party’s legal constitution.

According to him, the Labour Party continues to be the exclusive authority on all matters pertaining to the processes associated with the campaign for its duly submitted candidates.

The statement reads: “Our attention has once again been drawn to a very clear act of fraudulent activities of one Fabian Ihekweme, the illegal Imo State Chairman of Peter Obi/Datti presidential campaign council through a committed, deliberate and conscious mission to run Labour Party into a complicated set of sectoral and serial fraud through obtaining money under false pretext with the sole objective of compromising Labour party victory in the 2023 general election.

“This is once again malicious and bizarre antics of Fabian Ihekweme in his quest to keep deceiving the public through a fraudulent collection of donations from unsuspecting members of the public

“His provocative and highly contemptuous press statement addressed to media organisations would have been ignored with its puerile contents but for the fact that silence is thought to mean consent in all ramifications.

“Fabian in his very pitiful and totally arrogant, ignorant and pedestrian understanding of the constitution failed in his attempt to bring the party to some silly ridicule by making wrong claims that a candidate is free to independently set up a campaign team, free from the political party that presented him as a candidate.

“This and many primitive insinuations fuelled by ignorance were expressed in his so sinfully anti-Party misdemeanour of a state. He didn’t even stop at the foregoing as he went ahead to hand out threats to the leadership of the party.

“Furthermore, National Chairman of Labour Party, Barr Julius Abure, has declared that any further deliberate and criminally inclined infraction by anyone or group of people that in any way invite ridicule to the Party and its goodwill shall be reported to the office of the Inspector General of the Police and of course.”

Fabian Ihekweme Speaks

In another press release issued on Sunday, Ihekweme swiftly responded by defending himself and claiming the allegations were untrue.

Ihekweme, who confirmed that Pat Utomi and another senior member of the organization, officially inaugurated the Imo campaign council, pleaded with the party hierarchy to stop trying to discredit their presidential candidate.

He said: “It is important to put the records straight at this stage to avoid widespread misconceptions and wrong notions. On behalf of the Imo state Presidential Campaign Council for Peter Obi-Ahmed Datti, it is my singular honour to make the following clarifications with the view of strengthening our campaign and also to purge and disabuse the minds of our reading public on the false insinuations by a few detractors and disobedient elements who are direct beneficiaries of the current failed leadership and now trying to hide under the striking names of Peter Obi and Ahmed Datti to advance their own selfish political interests and advantages.

“I have refused to be dragged into this unnecessary and unwarranted supremacy battle with Imo LP leadership which claims to be acting on a directive from the National Secretariat of the Party to disown the constitution and inauguration of the Imo State Presidential Campaign Council.