2nd May, 2023
The presidential candidate of Labour Party in last election, Peter Obi has confessed speaking with Bishop David Oyedepo, presiding Bishop, Living Faith Worldwide on phone before the presidential election.
A leaked audio phone conversation had Obi begging Oyedepo to help him intervene in Kogi, Niger and some other places where the Christians were not cooperating.
Intermittently in the audio, he always answered Oyedepo ‘Yes Daddy,” which has been taken to another context.
In an interview on Arise TV on Monday night, Obi admitted that he did call Oyedepo, but said he never used the word ‘Religious war.’
Obi said he did not care whatever anybody said but that all he knew was that he is not a religious bigot.
“Do you think I can just pick a phone and say ‘religious war’? No, I was even begging the bishop to help me ask his people to vote, which was what I was doing for six months – begging.
“I wasn’t saying ‘catch him’, ‘kill him’, ‘force it’. I was even begging. That shows that I continued to look for votes by begging. There were so many things we tried to do but they were not okay,” he stated.
He said those who had been trying to manipulate Nigerians had been doing it, but said it is coming to an end.
Obi lamented that the people they have been manipulating are dying of hunger, adding that “they will soon know who is the religious or tribal bigot. I am not one. I have just given you an example of how I built mosques. Till today, no non-Muslim governor has sent more people to Mecca than me.”
According to Obi, he could never say the presidential election was a religious war, as it was not.
“There was a conversation. But I never said it was a religious war. What for? I am surrounded by people. If there was ever an instance where the presidential candidate and his deputy work as brothers, it is me and Datti. And I know and we never stop talking about it.
“For the first time in the history of Nigeria, we have a presidential candidate, running mate and party chairman who were born after Nigeria’s Independence. We must save this country and he (Datti) knows my commitment to it. I can’t do all these with the background of religious war,” he said.