By ADEKUNLE WILLIAMS

Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate in the 2023 General Elections, has described as fake, a photo of him and the Finland-based pro-Biafra agitator, Mr Simon Ekpa.

The Head of the Obi-Datti Media Office, Mr Diran Onifade, made this known in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Expa had been allegedly responsible for calling for several sit-at-home orders in the South-East region, which had allegedly resulted in loss of many lives and property.

Onifade said the perpetrators of the fake photo inserted Obi’s popular supporter and rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, to further claim credibility.

He said they all grew up being educated that photos tell a thousand stories and do not tell lies as photos were usually self-evident.

According to him, yet that was long years ago and long before digital technology took the World like a storm.

Onifade said the standard narrative had changed remarkably with dubious minds always ready to deploy its creatively albeit negatively, to create what was non-existent.

He said: “The scenario Is exactly what played out in the photoshopped picture of Peter Obi supposedly standing with the Finland-based irritant Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa.

“This is all in a desperate move to drag Obi’s name into disrepute by linking him with the ugly story that Ekpa has become in Nigeria.

“For clarity, the picture was taken by Obi standing with an admirer on a Virgin Flight on Friday, July 21, 2023.

“In trying to authenticate their filthy and disgustingly dirty act, they inserted the picture of Aisha Yusuf behind them.

“The memory may be short to forget that Obi was the first to describe the sit-at-home thing as an act being engineered and bred by a criminal that the system has refused to squarely tackle.”

Onifade said the menace of this crime was becoming manifest even to attract the views of the nation’s parliament, it may be necessary to critically study the handling of this crime.

In a related development, he said some people had put out a loss leader advert, purporting Peter Obi as “providing 20GB Free Data and N5000 Airtime in celebration of his 62^nd Birthday.

“This is a SCAM! Subscriber beware!!.”

Onifade said it was mind-boggling that these criminal ploys were passed off as playing politics.

He said that instead of seeking the line of a final solution to the cankerworm that had embarrassingly held the region and the country down, some mischief makers who were obsessed with Peter Obi’s rising fame were concerned with linking him to Ekpa.

According to him, yet another failed attempt to dent the political Eagle whose concern is how to create a new Nigeria and reduce the poverty in the land.

He said the reasonable thing to do if this country was sincere in tackling its economic challenges was to study the views expressed by this phenomenal political leader of contemporary Nigeria instead of trolling him endlessly. (NAN)

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