THE leaked conversation between Labour Party (LP) Presidential candidate Peter Obi and Bishop David Oyedepo, Founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, has sparked outrage.
Since Saturday, an audio clip released by the online newspaper Peoples Gazzete has gone viral on social media.
Obi was heard in the audio pleading with Oyedepo to assist him in mobilizing Christian voters ahead of the election, particularly those in the North Central states of Kwara, Kogi, and Niger, declaring the election a religious war.
Throughout the conversation, the former governor of Anambra State could be heard saying, “Yes Daddy.”
“Daddy, I need you to speak to your people in the South-West and Kwara, the Christians in the South-West and Kwara. This is a religious war. Like I keep saying: if this works, you people will never regret the support,” he said in the audio.
While confirming the authenticity of the audio in a statement issued in the early hours of Sunday, Kenneth Okonkwo, spokesperson for the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign, claimed it was taken out of context by critics.
But Festus Keyamo, who was spokesman of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, described the utterances of Oyedepo and Obi as shameful.
According to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), God exposed Obi for declaring a religious war in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country.
“Having confirmed the authenticity of what is now known as the Peter Obi ‘Yes-daddy’ audio, I think the real culprit here are the so-called ‘men of God’ who allowed themselves to be used by an unscrupulous politician to seek to inflame religious passions in our dear country in the name of politics.
“So, when they were telling their hapless adherents that they heard the voice of the Lord, it was actually Peter Obi’s telephone calls they heard and not God’s voice. This is deceitful, shameful and disgusting. Imagine a so-called ‘man of God’ comparing notes with a politician as to what he said or what he would say on the pulpit in order to get him votes.
“I hope this sufficiently embarrasses the ‘men of God’ in Nigeria to forthwith desist from using the pulpit for politics and the Church-goers to stop being teleguided by their self-serving ‘men of God’.
“As for Peter Obi who declared an election a ‘religious war’ in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country like ours, the real God has just exposed him and his dream to be Nigeria’s President one day has just died a natural death. ‘Yes-daddy’ is now permanently etched in the consciousness of the nation and we will NEVER forget!”
Balogun Akin Osuntokun, Director General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation, previously told Daily Trust that he had nothing to say on the matter.
Obi, according to Femi Fani-Kayode, Director of the APC’s New Media Subcommittee, is a religious bigot.
Tweeting via his handle, @realFFK, Fani-Kayode said, “For Peter to describe the presidential election as a religious war tells you that he is nothing but an insufferable, irresponsible and uncouth intellectual barbarian and fraud and an ethnic and religious bigot.”
Obi has been silent since the audio went viral, but his supporters have been trying to defend him.
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