Peter Obi renders account of presidential campaign funding in historic & unprecedented manner
In an unprecedented move in the history of elections in Nigeria, the Presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 General election Mr. Peter Obi has given account of money he spent during the election.
Disclosing this in a World press conference today, he announced that he has directed the leadership of the party to appoint a reputable audit firm that will look into the account of the party.
“What we need to do in the party and I have discussed it with the leadership is that we must now appoint a
reputable audit firm to audit and be able to deal with the account of the part.
“Accountability and transparency are very critical and important; that is why we asked people to donate so that we could come back to them to explain how their money was judiciously used.
At the briefing, Obi also appealed to various support groups or individuals and parties that received funding to support the campaign, for which they were grateful, to account to those they received it from.
“There are some people, like support groups and some people abroad who collected monies that they are going to use it to help out campaign. We were not stringent that everything you collect must come to us, but we want whatever is collected to be accounted for and we’re appealing to them to do so.
Speaking at the event, Mrs. Aisha Yesufu, Chairman of the Fund raising team of the Campaign Organisation, said the party spent over N744,500,000.00 in litigation in courts over the 2023 Presidential election while it received donations totaling N595,976,994.00.
“We thank everyone who donated in cash and kind. From the donations given by citizens, we received N595,976,994. This is the money we raised from the four accounts that we have talked about. We also received N8,000,000 from the candidate himself (Peter Obi)”, she explained
“We designed a strategic blueprint focused on channeling the movement energy and support for Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed with different support groups. We provided direct and indirect support to over a hundred support groups across all 36 states in Nigeria.
“We also deployed media-related campaigns that reached over 11 million people, leveraging over 40 radio stations, community outreach, and social media.
“We would have loved to use Televisions but because of our financial constraints, we were mindful of being judicious in our usage of the funds that we received.
“So, out of these things; campaign materials worth N258,374,330.00 were procured and distributed across the 36 States and also in Abuja. Media and radio broadcasting was at the cost of N16,432,867.00.
“For the election promotion expenses, we had N10,808,948.00. For Polling Unit Agents, we spent N324,381,700.00. And then, of course, we had bank charges of N1,750,544.00.
“We also had administrative charges of N477,000.00. We deployed N744,500,000.00 to cover legal expenses. And then, in campaign and election activities, we had over N28,500,000.00.
On the issue of legal fees, remember what I said earlier: We had N800,000,000.00 that the candidate himself brought,” Yesufu said.
