The presidential candidate of the African Alliance Congress (AAC) in the 2023 general elections, Omoyele Sowore, has picked holes in the report that his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, was detained in the United Kingdom.
A statement by The Head, Media and Communications of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Diran Onifade, on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, revealed how the former Anambra State governor was held up at Heathrow Airport by the United Kingdom Immigration officers over suspicion of impersonation.
According to Onifade, Obi was detained and questioned for a duplication offence suggesting someone must have been impersonating him in London.
The UK Immigration officers reportedly accosted the Labour Party candidate on arrival at the Heathrow Airport in London from Nigeria on Good Friday, April 7, 2023.
While on the queue for the necessary airport protocols, the officials handed him a detention note and told him to step aside.
Onifade said, โSince 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 peopleโ.
โThe immigration officials who were also taken aback at the reaction of the people were forced to reveal that Obi was being questioned for a โDUPLICATION offenseโ meaning that someone has been impersonating him in London.
โThe high implication of the offense is that the impersonator could be committing all kinds of weighty crimes and other dubious acts and it would be recorded in Obiโs name.”
Reacting to the incident in a tweet on his verified Twitter page on Wednesday, Sowore found it difficult to believe that such a treatment was meted out on Obi despite the sophistication of the modern biometric passport.
The AAC presidential torch-bearer also questioned why the incident was relayed to the media by third parties and not Obi himself, concluding that something fishy might be going on.
Sowore’s tweet read: “There is something suspicious about @peterobiโs UK โImmigration Story,โ because I donโt see how a modern biometric passport with his fingerprints and biometric identity could lead to his being seen as an โimpersonatorโ or a clone, more curious is why heโs sending third parties to tell half of the story. Something fishy is going on! #Revolutionnow.”
