Victor Ezeja
Obi-Datti Media Office has described as “fake”, a photo circulating on the Internet purported to be that of the Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Mr Peter Obi, and Finland-based Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa.
A statement signed by Diran Onifade, Head Media, Obi-Datti Office said it was a photoshopped picture of Obi and Ekpa.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelOnifade said the original picture from where it was cropped out and joined with a picture of Ekpa, was taken in with an admirer of Obi on a Virgin Flight on Friday, July 21, 2023.
It said the photo manipulation was apparently done by traducers of the Labour Party presidential candidate, who are bent on linking Obi with the Ekpa, who has been leading a group enforcing sit-at-home and causing mayhem in Southeast Nigeria.
He said it is on record that Obi had repeatedly condemned the sit-at-home order in Southeast and described it as an act being engineered by a criminal and needed to be tackled.
The statement reads:
“We all grew up being educated that photos tell a thousand stories and do not tell lies as photos are usually self-evident. Yet that was long years ago and long before digital technology took the World like a storm. That standard narrative has changed remarkably with dubious minds always ready to deploy it creatively albeit negatively, to create what is non-existent.
“Obi-Datti Media office notes that the scenario is exactly what played out in the photoshopped picture of the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi supposedly standing with the Finland-based irritant Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa 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.
“Now that the menace of this crime is 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, APC troll agents have put out a loss leader advert purporting Peter Obi as “providing 20GB Free Data and N5000 Airtime in celebration of his 62nd Birthday.” This is a SCAM! Subscriber beware!!
“It is mindboggling that these criminal ploys are passed off as playing politics. Instead of seeking the line of a final solution to the cankerworm that has embarrassingly held the region and the country down, some mischief makers who are obsessed with Peter OBI’S rising fame are concerned with linking him to Ekpa.
“Yet another failed attempt to dent the political Eagle whose concern is how to create a new Nigeria and reduce the growing poverty in the land.
“Obi-Datti Media office thinks that the reasonable thing to do if this country is sincere in tackling its socio-political and economic challenges is to quietly study the views laboriously expressed by this phenomenal political leader of contemporary Nigeria instead of trolling him endlessly.”
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
