A former National Treasurer of the Labour Party, Oluchi Opara, has alleged that the factional chairman of the party, Julius Abure, forged the party’s late chairman’s signature and transferred money to his wife, siblings, staff and his personal company’s accounts.
Oluchi Opara said the party had no money by the time Abure took over from late A.A. Salam, as national chairman of the party. She explained that two months after Salami’s death Abure cleared every money in the party’s account.
According to her, LP came into relevance through the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi. She added that Abure cannot point fingers at Obi as he was the one who revived the party and the money the party came to have.
Speaking in an interview with News Central on Tuesday, Mrs. Oluchi said, “I know I came out sometime in February, like you said, to say that the former national chairman of our party, Barrister Julius Abure has to come out clean to explain what had happened to the finances of the Labour Party, allegations of embezzlement, misappropriation, misapplication of power, and a whole lot of things that I came out to say that time, including the forging of the late national chairman’s signature to withdraw money from an account after he is dead.
“I was thinking that he should have come out to explain to Nigerians or even allow an external auditor to audit the accounts of the Labour Party, but he has refused to do the needful instead and he is trying to do a campaign against the man, Mr. Peter Obi, who gave him life, because before now, there was no Abure. Before now, the Labour Party was nowhere.”
Mrs Opara further accused Abure of being ungrateful. She maintained that the factional chairman of LP was trying to divert attention of Nigerians from the campaign fund looting allegation. She challenged him to allow independent auditors to audit the party’s account.
The former national treasurer also stated that contrary to Abure’s claim the party was not in charge of the last campaign fund, the party actually was in charge.
According to her, the account number, a former member of Obi/Datti campaign council, Aisha Yesufu shared on her X account, was the account the party used to receive campaign funds from Nigerians.
“So I think he is ungrateful on his part, on his side, to come out to want to damage the image of an icon, political icon that is known to the world, not just to Nigeria. Abure should come out because I say he who must go to equity must come with clean hands.
“He should not divert attention. He should come out to collect allegations on his head. I think this story is not new to Nigeria because I came out shouting from pillar to post, telling Nigerians that we have to live by example, because you can’t be saying that the government of the day is not doing the right thing, whereas we have corruption, it is under us.
“Let’s even start with Abure. Let’s allow an independent auditor to audit the accounts first. Let’s start with ourselves first before pointing an accusative finger. And again, we did have a campaign account for the Labour Party. So I don’t know why he is coming out to say that we never had a campaign account. We did, we have. Aisha Yesufu mentioned the account number yesterday (Monday). We did have an account. So he should stop peddling lies. To me, it’s an attempt to cover whatever he has done. And that shouldn’t be,” she stated.
When asked to reconfirm that Abure allegedly looted campaign funds of the party, Opara repeated.
“I came out that February I said that the late national chairman’s signature was forged two months after his death. Before the passing of the late national chairman A. A. Salam of blessed memory, the party didn’t have any money in the accounts. Then two months after his death monies were cleared by Julius Abure.
“Abure never bothered what the family was going through at that time. And again at that time when I came out I noticed that he was transferring money to his wife’s accounts, to his brother’s account, to his company’s accounts, to everybody even down to the staff of the office.
“He will use the staff’s accounts to siphon money; at the end of the day, this same staff will send that money to an account that will get to Barrister Abure.
“A lawyer that he claims to be, forged a signature of a late man like the national chairman of our party. He didn’t care what the outcome was going to be.
“If he is saying I’m lying he should let that account to be reactivated so the Nigerians can actually see, to even question him how on earth did the man after his death came out to sign a check for him to clear money from the account. He should stop pointing accusing finger to Mr Peter Obi,” Mrs Opara explained.
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