The Labour Party leadership has promised that it hasn't ignored the suggestion from its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to conduct a thorough audit of LP accounts.
This was affirmed in two different interviews with the Chief Spokesman for the Labour Party Campaign Organisation, Yunusa Tanko, and the National Publicity Secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh.
The push for an independent audit firm to investigate the party's finances came after the National Treasurer of LP, Oluchi Oparah, (now suspended) challenged the National Chairman, Julius Abure, to explain the alleged N3.5bn raised from the sale of nomination forms and fundraising activities for the 2023 general elections.
Opara also accused Abure of not handing over donations received from Nigerians in Diaspora during Obi’s election campaign tour in the United States.
However, the Edo politician denied all her claims when he appeared on Arise News following the accusation.
Armed with certain documents and copies of cheques allegedly signed by the treasurer, Abure lamented that the corruption allegations against him were designed to damage his reputation.
In response, Obi called for an examination of the party’s account to clarify the situation.
Obi's proposal was backed by the 36 state chairmen of the Labour Party.
Nevertheless, one month after the recommendation was made by Obi and other party stakeholders, nothing was heard about the case again.
When approached, Tanko assured our reporter that the matter had not been ignored as rumored.
He said, “That particular process is still ongoing. What is required now is just to make the financial records available and we will proceed from there. It is an ongoing matter.
“Don’t 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 hiding anything as you alleged.”
On his part, Ifoh told our correspondent:
“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 records. We are also urging Peter Obi to speed up the auditing of our accounts.”
