Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi has once again found himself and his presidential campaign embroiled in corruption saga as his campaign funds have been traced by the FBI to include illicit funds gotten from cybercrime.
This recent discovery adds to the stockpile of controversies that have marred Obi’s campaign with mismanagement of funds and authorized signatories to the funds headlining the issues that have wrangled the party presidential campaign council.
In February 2023, the FBI traced stolen funds to Obi’s campaign from the US, via the confession of Solomon Ekunke Okpe and Johnson Uke Obogo, who were both arrested in December 2022 for conspiracy to commit wire, bank, and mail fraud.
Recall in November 2022, Obi took his campaign to the diaspora where he solicited for funds to support his ambition.
Okpe and Obogo who are allies of Obi and are popular for being involved in a variety of cyber-enabled fraud schemes, committed their stolen funds to the ObiDatti campaign.
A few weeks to the presidential election, the duo got arrested by the FBI and pleaded guilty to the charges.
Going by the court document, Okpe and his co-conspirators were into, check-fraud, romance, and credit-card scams and bank frauds known in local parlance as ”yahoo yahoo” boys.
This development did not come as a surprise to many as a few weeks ago, Obi, during a townhall meeting with the students of the University of Abuja, publicly supported cyber fraud, noting that Yahoo boys are doing a legitimate hustle.
He went ahead to plead with the EFCC and Police to stop arresting them.
It appears that Obi could not denounce cyber fraud during the town hall meeting in full awareness that a chunk of his campaign funds were gotten from from fraudsters who are his friends in the diaspora.