Aisha Yesufu, Abure bicker over management of Peter Obi’s campaign funds

Aisha Yesufu, activist and founder of Citizens Hub, has alleged that Julius Abure, national chairman of the Labour Party (LP), lied about the party’s 2023 presidential campaign funds.

Peter Obi was the party’s standard-bearer in the election.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Abure said Yesufu and Itua Ighodalo were responsible for managing Obi’s campaign funds during the election.

The Abure-led national working committee (NWC) of the LP had implored the national security adviser and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate Yesufu, Ighodalo, Obi, and leaders of Afenifere, for alleged “misappropriation of funds from the 2023 presidential campaign”.

“The party and I have been accused of being responsible for Peter Obi’s failure in the 2023 general election. They stated that the campaign election donations and funds for the payment of agents were mismanaged by the party hence Peter Obi failed in the election,” Abure said.

“The election funding was done by Obi himself. As per the donations, the party was not involved. The signatories to these accounts were Aisha Yesufu and Pastor Itua Ighodalo. They were equally responsible for the payment of polling unit agents.”

In a press conference on Wednesday in Ogun state, Abayomi Arabambi, national publicity secretary of the LP, accused Yesufu, Ighodalo, and Afenifere of mismanaging the funds.

‘A BIG, FAT LIE’

Responding in a video posted on YouTube on Tuesday, Yesufu, who chaired the fundraising team, said Abure’s remarks were a misrepresentation.

“That statement Abure made was a big, fat lie. There were times when the fundraising team was frustrated with me because of my insistence on due process,” she said.

“Before Mr Obi came out with his campaign account, the Labour Party had theirs. I have here a Labour Party N1,000 challenge post that was tweeted on November 24, 2022.

“When that account was opened by Abure, I was very angry. I remember some people harmlessly saying it was no big deal since it was for the same Labour Party campaign.

“But I insisted that it is not the same thing because we don’t have access to any money that went into the LP account and therefore can’t use it to facilitate the electioneering campaign.

“So for Julius Abure to come out in 2024 to blatantly lie that they were not involved in any campaign, saying it was only Aisha Yesufu and Pastor Itua (is unbelievable).

“By the way, there are three signatories, not two as he said. Up till now, the LP has not accounted for the money the public donated to them neither have they accounted for the money used to procure forms.”

‘ABURE FACTION GAVE US FICTITIOUS NAMES OF AGENTS TO PAY’

Yesufu claimed that the LP faction led by Abure gave her “fictitious” names to pay as LP agents during the election.

“There is a statement that Mr Abure made that they had made the polling units agent list available. That is a lie,” she said.

“The party didn’t want to release the polling agent list. We kept asking for it. On the day of the election, after they finally gave us the party agent list… we started paying the polling agents then something was amiss.

“Remember people started saying they were not seeing polling party agents in their places. Most of the agents that worked were actually Obidients.

“So, randomly we were calling the (phone) numbers that we had. You will call someone, maybe the name (on the list) is male but a female will answer and say they don’t know what we are talking about. What polling unit agent?

“It was like magic. And immediately I asked my team to stop payment. The Abure and his team — they have hated my guts after the election because of one thing: those monies were kept in my hands and I refused to send it to them.

“That was when we realised that those Abure people — the Labour Party had given us fictitious names. Most of the names there (on the list) weren’t supposed to be there. They had been changed. If they want to go to court, please let us all meet in the court.”

She said about 2,000 names on the agent list were already paid before they stopped dispensing the funds.

According to her, over N1billion was budgeted to be paid to over 13,000 polling agents.

Yesufu said her team has accounted for how money donated for the campaign was expended.

“We are ready for anyone who wants to scrutinize the account at any time. Accountability and transparency were the bedrock of which we ran that campaign fundraising,” she said.

“There are people who reported me to Peter Obi because I refused to collect cash from them.”

The LP is embroiled in a leadership crisis which has polarised the party.