The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has asked the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi for clarification on the leaked audio conversation between him and the founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo.
Recall that an online newspaper had released the audio clip which allegedly had Oyedepo and Obi’s voices in it. However, Mr. Peter Obi debunked the audio describing it as “a fake doctored audio call.”
Alhaji Mohammed, while addressing the media on Monday in London said, there is a need for him to beam light on the controversial leaked video challenging Obi to clarify which part of the audio seemed fake and doctored.
“I need to draw the attention of Nigerians to the recent leaked audio of conversation between the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and the cleric.
“The leaked audio rattled Nigerians because we heard Obi pleading with the cleric to interfere on his behalf to convince Christians that this is a religious war and they should support him,” he said.
The minister said that in the aftermath of the leaked audio, Obi came out to say that it was “a fake, doctored audio call.”
Reacting, Minister Mohammed said: ” If it is fake, it means it never took place. But if it is doctored, it means there was that conversation but it was manipulated.
“Obi needs to come out and make the clarification on whether the conversation did not take place or it took place, but it was doctored.
“If it was doctored, which part of it was doctored?
“Is it the beginning, the middle or the end or is it the ‘Yes Daddy’ part of it, or where he said it was a religious war?”
Mohammed also declared that the leaked audio is hinged on Obi’s perceived position that his electioneering campaign was based on religion and ethnicity; adding that this is first time in the history of Nigeria’s elections that a politician would come out openly to campaign on grounds of religion and ethnicity.
“From the outcome of the presidential elections you will see that Obi got his vote mostly from areas where he comes from and his religious leaning.
” This is not good for the politics of Nigeria and it is very dangerous.
“As a result of this kind of campaign, Nigeria is more divided than ever and people are being heard commenting either based on their religious position or ethnic origin.
“Many otherwise respected commentators are not left behind on the effect of this divisive politics,” he said.
Touching on his mission to London, the minister said it was to defend the legitimacy of the just concluded general elections and to correct the imbalance in the skewed narrative which had pervaded the air on the polls.
He said, similar to what he did recently in Washington, he is set to inform the world that the 2023 election was the freest in Nigeria’s history.
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