The Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Office has confirmed that the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, was arrested and detained on arrival at Heathrow Airport by UK Immigration officials on April 7, over a case of mistaken identity.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) of Paul University, Awka, Anambra State, Prof. Chinyere Okunna, had in a post on her Facebook page yesterday narrated how Obi told her of his ordeal in London, and the harassment he has been facing from powerful politicians in Nigeria to force him to flee from the country.
Reacting to the story, spokesman for the Campaign Council, Diran Onifade, in a statement yesterday, confirmed that Obi was detained and questioned for an identity duplication offence.
This, he said, adds credence to Prof. Okunna’s allegations that an impersonator had been at work in the English capital, London.
Onifade said, among other things, in a statement, that Obi had arrived at Heathrow Airport in London from Nigeria on Good Friday, April 7, 2023, and joined the queue for the necessary airport protocols. He was then accosted by immigration officials who handed the presidential candidate a detention note and told him to step aside.
According to the party spokesman, Obi “was questioned for a long time.
He added that that was very strange for a man who lived for over a decade in that country.
“Since Obi’s face was already an international frame, especially for Nigerians, Africans home, and in Diaspora, who are likely to be Obidients, the people quickly raised their voices wondering why he was being delayed.”
Onifade said the situation was saved by the spontaneous reaction of Nigerians at Heathrow Airport who were ready to create a scene over Obi’s detention.
He also stated that the immigration officials, who were also taken aback at the reaction of the people, were forced to reveal to those present asked why Obi was being questioned.
“Since the impersonator is still at large, the scenario is unimaginable as Obi could be implicated in a series of forbidden acts and even be framed in a manner that could be a huge embarrassment to him, his family, his party, the Obidient Movement, and indeed Nigeria, where he currently and indisputably remains the conscience of the people.
“Obi’s telephone line was also bugged when they were possibly looking for information to portray him badly before a section of the country who had voted for him massively.
“As if they were not getting the desired results of denting his image, and possibly placing the traducers under a heavier conscience load, they tried to persuade him to leave the country and go take a rest.”
The statement added, “It’s also not impossible that those urging him to leave the country may have planted the impersonators ostensibly to tar the Eagle’s immaculate appearance,” Onifade said, adding that Obi has been under all kinds of attack since the February 25th presidential election.
“Even the Federal Government who directed him to go to court over the result of the election despatched the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammad, to the United States to attempt at de-marketing him and accused him of treason.
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Meanwhile, Nigerians, especially the presidential candidate, have been reacting to the development, condemning the impersonation of the former Anambra State governor.
Many of them argued that whoever was behind such a hideous act was doing a great disservice to Nigeria and the Nigerian people.
They took to social media to react following reports that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) was detained by immigration officials at Heathrow Airport in London on April 7, 2023.
A commentator, alias ‘top tier’, who is a consultant, wrote, “They think UK immigration is like Nigerian immigration. Whosoever conceived the idea of impersonating @PeterObi is doing themselves a disservice.
“If you’re the impersonator, your days are numbered. Identity theft is a serious offence, and I know NCA, Europol, and Interpol will fish you asap. If this attack on Peter Obi is state-sponsored, it is game over for the current administration.”
On his part, Jasper Aniet Louis, wrote, “The immigration officers are just doing their job. But thank God they didn’t find any negatives. We should have it at the back of our minds that our principal is not above the law and can’t engage in anything that will bring down his reputation. May Peter Obi Succeed.”
A buff, Don Clinton, wrote, “We sincerely apologise to the general public for this very act of nuisance. The poster is one of our psychiatric patients who escaped last night. We urge the public to go about your various businesses as everything is under control. Thanks for your understanding…God bless you.”
Another source, who simply identified himself as ‘Sun’ wrote, “I love the part of the report that described how Nigeria at the airport raised their voices and voiced their concerns. Nobody did so for Ekweremadu. The love is overwhelming.”
Mac Tony wrote, “Everything travel he is experiencing will be for the good of Nigeria and Nigerians. Peter Obi will succeed. UK immigration will now see reasons to track his impersonators and bring them to book. Peter Obi’s journey will be turbulent but he will surely get to his destination Amen.”
Meanwhile, the apex Igbo socio-cultural body, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has condemned last week’s reported attempt to arrest the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in London, the UK, as a move by political enemies.
According to the group, any plot to embarrass and pull down Obi, “because he had decided to legally pursue the mandate believed to have been given him by Nigerians, will continue to fail.”
Obi disclosed his frustration on the interrogation in a chat with a longtime ally, Prof. Stella Okunna, who served under him in many capacities when he was the governor of Anambra State.
But Ohanaeze said, “The sole aim of faking Obi’s identity was to use his name to commit crimes in London and other parts of the world so as to get him implicated in dubious and criminal activities and rope him into any number of offences to get him out of the political space.”
In her account of what Obi told her, as narrated in her Facebook account, Okunna, in the piece she entitled: “What Peter Obi is going through: does any human being deserve this type of shocking intimidation and emotional torture?”, narrated what happened at .
“Today 11/04/2023, I was shocked beyond words to hear from His Excellency, Mr. Peter what he went through when his British Airways plane landed at Heathrow Airport, London, in the early morning of Friday 07/04/2023.
“He was talking to me at the official opening of the Specialist Hospital of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters, Nkpor.
“He had arrived at the event after flying in from London, his presence heralded by the usual ‘ear-splitting’ ovation that accompanies him everywhere nowadays.
“As the ‘Most Outstanding Pillar of the Foundation/Hospital’, the Reverend Sisters were full of expectations that he would attend; so were we (members of the Governing Board of the IHM Sisters Healthcare System), although there was also anxiety about whether he would be able to make it, being outside Nigeria.
“I actually had no idea he had travelled out of the country until the ovation over his presence in a London Church went viral on the Internet.
“I would never have imagined he would be able to go anywhere so soon after his energy-sapping marathon visits on 06/04 to Paul University, Regina Caeli Hospital and other health facilities, where he went about touching lives in his usual quiet philanthropic manner.
“His whirlwind activities that day in Anambra State and beyond were another eloquent testimony to Peter Obi’s incredible stamina and multi-tasking capacity.
“To be able to fly out of the country that night made this capacity even more incredible.
“Landing in London, Peter Obi joined the usual queue to pass through Immigration, and that was when his ordeal began.
“He was stopped and questioned for a long time and subsequently handed a detention note and told to wait for further interrogation and investigation. This was terribly unusual for a man who had lived honourably in the UK for a long time.
“In the face of this harassment, some well-meaning Nigerians, knowing who he is, raised their voices in protest, demanding to know why he was being treated that way.
“Then came the shocking revelation by the Immigration Officer who told him that his identity ‘WAS DUPLICATED’. This revelation has definitely set off alarm bells.
“For people who are knowledgeable about such matters, this is a very dangerous development because the implication is that someone is impersonating Peter Obi.
“And that someone could implicate Obi in all manner of dubious and even criminal activities, and rope him into any number of offences; he could get Obi framed for one criminal act or another.
“The frightening scenario of what can happen is unimaginable!
“This is the height of it all for a man who has been under sundry intimidation and emotional torture: bugging of his phone and those of his wife and children; keeping him constantly under surveillance; calling him names; putting him under severe pressure to leave (run away from) the country; wrongly accusing him of negative things he knows absolutely nothing about etc.
“As he was telling me his ‘Heathrow tale of woe’ at Nkpor today, I could see a man who was in severe pain and under unbearable stress, who many would expect to be at the point of despair.
“But, as he confirmed, he is ready to suffer this pain and is as determined as ever to pursue the path which he has chosen to enable him to arrive at the destination which well-meaning people in Nigeria and far far beyond are expecting him to arrive at.
“This is the destination where Nigerians will be able to live in a secure and productive country which they (particularly the younger generations) will be proud to call their own.
“Ahead, Ahead!
“I suppose he told me all this confidentially. My very sincere apologies, Your Excellency, for ‘breaking’ this confidentiality, but history beckons and I cannot keep qui
