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How Peter Obi was ‘coerced’ into running for governor of Anambra state

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The leading presidential candidate and flag-bearer of the Labour Party Mr. Peter Obi has amassed enormous support which cuts across all geo-political regions in Nigeria and he can unarguably be projected as the most accepted candidate amongst the 4 front runners for the Aso Rock seat in 2023. Unlike many politicians who joined politics on their own volition, Peter Obi is one of the very few politicians who never desired public office prior to his decision to run for the Anambra gubernatorial elections in 2003, a decision that came at a very huge cost because he had to leave his budding and vast business empire to rescue a state drowning in questionable governance and all that comes with it.

Peter Obi was governor of Anambra state from 2006 to 2014

In this article, we will discuss how Peter Obi was ‘coerced’ into running for the Anambra governorship position in 2002.

In 2002, the PDP stakeholders & power brokers asked Prof ABC Nwosu, a respected figure and elder statesman, to recommend 3 very competent peoplethat are capable of restoring Anambra from its then very horrible state under the erstwhile governor, Dr Chinweoke Mbadinuju. Prof Nwosu forwarded 3 names;

  1. Peter Obi
  2. Peter Obi
  3. Peter Obi

When Prof. Nwosu was questioned about his choice and why he didn’t nominate anyone else apart from Obi, he said, “Peter Obi is the only one I know who can restore Anambra state and take it to a new phase, he is the only one I can vouch for, he is the only one I can guarantee. He is an honest and straightforward man, he is the only one I know who will work for the interest of the people, and not for a few elites and cabals”.

The PDP power brokers then made an enquiry about the then 41 year old Obi who at the time was the Chairman of Fidelity bank PLC, Guardian Express mortgage bank and also held an executive director positionin Guardian Express Bank Limited, alongside sitting on the boards of over 5 multinational corporations. This was in addition to running a mult-billion naira commodity franchise in Lagos and Onitsha. The PDP discovered that the man Obi was a very dexterous, disciplined and principled man and could pose threats to their embezzlement plans for the state and so they decided against going for him.

They didn’t want anyone who they couldn’t control like a puppet, this gave the Uba brothers (Chris and Andy Uba) an opportunity to hijack the party due totheir close relationship with President Obasanjo, as Andy Obi was then the senior special assistant to president Obasanjo on domestic affairs, it was said that he was the first person Obasanjo saw when he woke and the last person he’d see before he sleeps, he was the gate-keeper of Aso-Rock, he was extremely close to the president, so he wielded this influence and connection graciously.

Obi would decline Prof Nwosu’s request to join the race for the 2003 gubernatorial race but after persistent pleas from not just Prof Nwosu, but other prominent figures from the state like Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu the Biafra warlord, former Vice-president of Nigeria Dr Alex Ekwueme, and a delegation of Catholic Bishops, he obliged their request and would then resign his many positions in the business world to throw down his gauntlet for the governorahip seat. Seeing as there was nospace for him in PDP, he then joined the newly formed APGA on the advice of his political mentor Odumegwu Ojukwu and Prof Nwosu.

This was Obi’s first time in politics, he knew nothing about maneuvering the radical, corrupt and violent Anambra state elections at the time and unlike other candidates who went about sharing monies for citizens, Obi would address the pertinent issues the state faced at the time, laying out a blueprint on how he’d address those issues if and when elected.

Against all odds, Peter Obi would later win the election, even though he was initially robbed of his victory by the wide spread rigging of PDP, he regained his mandate through the appeal court in 2006, 3 years into the tenure of the PDP and the Uba brothers imposed choice, Chris Ngige, who was made to take an oath of loyalty to them in 2003 in the now infamous Okija shrine.

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2 BIRDS OF A FEATHER: HOW APC & PDP FEASTED ON LP VOTES

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The 2023 Presidential Election has been themed the ‘worst election in the history of Nigeria’ by most Nigerians & observers from across the globe.

Prof Mahmood Yakubu declared Tinubu president-elect amidst controversial circumstances

Many weeks have passed since Prof Mahmood Yakubu controversially announced the APC candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the polls and subsequently returned as the president-elect, but Nigerians won’t let this slide as a resolve has been made by the country’s very youthful population to restore the mandate which majority of them opine is rightfully the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s.

As the ruling party, it was only normal that APC was fingered as the ‘usual suspect’, their corrupt counterparts, PDP has however managed to stay out of the spotlight, leaving APC to face the wrath and backlash of angry Nigerians alone. However, Reportera News investigative reports has revealed that not only APC rigged in the 2023 presidential election, but their longtime opposition, PDP. Peter Obi’s LP who banked on INEC’s promise on delivering a free & fair poll were the victim of Prof Mahmood & INEC’s gross ineptitude.

Whilst APC focused their nefarious activities in remote areas in the North West and South West regions of the country, PDP focused on the South South and the North East, to ‘harvest’ LP votes, primarily. Studies have indicated that Peter Obi’s LP won Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, & Taraba; 3 PDP states, but were unfortunately rigged out of the polls, giving PDP controversial victories in the states. The electoral heist also saw the transfer of LP votes to APC in Benue, Plateau, and Rivers. Nigerians have called for the arrest and criminal prosecution of INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu for electoral, LP has also petitioned the judiciary seeking the annulment of the election by the Court of Appeal which is set to begin trial on 30th May 2023.

This is a developing Story, subscribe to our newsletter to read new episodes of our series; ‘2023 election Audit’.

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Exposed: INEC Didn’t Have To Wipe BVA Data For ‘Storage Space’

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INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu

The 2023 presidential election may have come and gone to some people, it however left a bitter taste in the mouths of most Nigerians who came out in their numbers to vote for their future only for the election results to be systemically rigged in favour of the ruling party, APC. To many, this is a nightmare that they’re hoping they’d wake up from, but to INEC it’s a bone they can’t spit nor swallow; this is because the manner with which the election was rigged is what experts call ‘lazy rigging’ due to the fact that they left far too many loopholes, subsequently leaving a trail of evidence to the public of the travesty disguised as election that occured on February 25th 2023.

This has left INEC in between crossroads as they are torn in the middle of defending the poorly conducted heist or admitting that the poll was flawed. The electoral body has however refused to lean towards the latter, arguing vehemently that they conducted a free & fair election, this obviously is a blatant lie based on the response of Nigerians who mostly feel that the results were rigged.

INEC has been dragged to court by the two main opposition parties, LP and PDP, however it is only the former who actually has a strong grip on their case since evidence has also shown that the latter committed the same electoral fraud that they accuse the ruling party, APC of.

Ekemp M8, the BVA used by INEC

BVA ‘Wahala’

One of the first requests of LP to the court was to have them inspect the BVAs to ensure that the INEC-published-results corresponded with the data available on the devices. However, INEC made a bogus claim that they had to wipe the presidential election results data to make storage space for the gubernatorial polls which happened almost a month after the presidential polls.

The Labour Party led by it’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi which on account of most Nigerians won the election are the major victims of this fraud have approached the courts to retrieve their stolen mandate, one which is expected to upheaval the status quo; in fact, many analysts have postulated that this trial is the biggest in the history of this nation.

In this article, Reportera News takes a deeper look at the device in question to determine if INEC’s claim could be substantiated and most importantly, proven to be truthful. Unfortunately, it isn’t; INEC lied inconspicuously and as a matter of fact, our investigation revealed that the device could handle upto 50 more elections of the same magnitude without needing to erase the data.

Discoveries:

The model of the BVA devices used by INEC is an ‘Ekemp M8’, it’s a biometric tablet with a processor speed of 1.3GHz manufactured by the global electronic powerhouse, Samsung. It comes with a 2 Gigabyte storage space with options that goes upto 8 Gigabytes. The simply interpretation of this information is that the device can accommodate data for 50 different elections without needing a ‘reconfiguration’. This ultimately begs the questions;

what is INEC hiding?

Why are they scared to hand over the BVAs for inspection of it’s content if they affirm that the election was conducted in a free and fair atmosphere?

The answer is simple; there is no correlation between the fraudulently announced results and the results in the BVAs, they just do not match, hence their decision to withhold the device and avert exposing the electoral fraud they committed.

Specs of the Ekemp M8

our IT experts looked at the specifications of this device and have come to a technical conclusion that it was ‘illogical’ to wipe the data since the election would have taken at most 2% of the storage capacity using the average Polling Unit to voters ratio which is 300 voters per polling unit.

According to most Nigerians and available evidence, Peter Obi of LP won the 2023 presidential election

As Nigerians stay focused on the judiciary hoping that the INEC results are annulled unequivocally, INEC and APC have deployed many machineries to consolidate the fraud they did, one of which was Lai Mohammed’s Washington DC trip where he went on international media organization at the behest of his paymasters to spread false information on the election, an action that has received heavy criticism from Nigerians who think that it was a waste of public funds as the announcement could have been made here in Nigeria, albeit faux news.

Verdict:

Our verdict is very clear, there is absolutely no reason for INEC to erase, transfer, or reconfigure the data on the BVA since there was more than enough storage space and most importantly, the BVAs were the subject of investigation for electoral fraud, hence not meant to be tampered with as this could affect the outcome of the case.

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Rivers: Nyesom Wike And Sim Fubara, Rivers State Governor-elect Fight Dirty

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L-R Sim Fubara, Nyesom Wike

A head of May 29, 2023 inauguration, the outgoing governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike and his ‘political son’, and current Governor-elect of the state, Sim Fubara have fallen out, Reportera News has learned.

According to reports from Rivers State, the rift is as a result of disagreement between the duo on the Party’s (People’s Democratic Party) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

According to reports from Rivers State, the rift is as a result of disagreement between the duo on the Party’s (People’s Democratic Party) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Nyesom Wike political godfather of Sim Fubara

A source told Reportera in Port Harcourt that Wike is fuming that Fubara invited Atiku and other PDP leaders considered to be his enemies to the May 29 inauguration at Portharcourt without his consent. The source said that when confronted, Fubara told his close aides that he wouldn’t want to inherit the enemies of the outgoing governor and wouldn’t want to start fighting political wars early in his administration.

He opted for reconciliation with the party leaders both at the state and national, which didn’t go down well with the Port Harcourt hit man. This has created a huge crack between the two and we were told that Wike is withholding release of funds for the inauguration. The political battle between Wike and Fubara will be interesting.

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