Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi has been accused of giving campaign funds to his cronies based on “ethnic and religious consideration” because he does not trust and respect party chairpersons across the 36 states, says Gombe Labour Party chairman Sani Abdulsalam.

Mr Abdulsalam made the allegations on Thursday during a press briefing.

“We have never been respected by the party leadership, and also, our presidential candidate has no respect for our party executives at state levels,” the party chair in Gombe claimed. “Because Peter Obi deliberately mismanaged our goodwill with the imposition of his members and other support groups that decamped with him in May 2022 to our party.”

Mr Abdulsalam revealed that at a meeting on Wednesday with the national chairman in the party’s head office, “where a discussion was held about the logistics support for state chapters and national officers towards effective mobilisation of our members” for the presidential and national assembly elections on Saturday.

“To our surprise, the national chairman said the presidential candidate has no confidence in all the 36 state chapters’ leadership but would rather choose to work with their cronies and support group that came with him,” the Gombe Labour Party leader stated.

He added, “The greatest shock from the national chairman was that money for agents will not be sent to any state chairman or national officers except those three NWC members, including a woman, and that all state chairmen and 19 other members already picked by Mr Peter Obi himself will be given monies meant for party agents and an alert will be received by 10:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 22, 2023.”

Mr Abdulsalam further claimed that state chairmen in all 36 states did not receive mobilisation funds because Mr Obi favoured “a particular ethnic group.”

“As of now, no alert has been received by any state chairman, and information reaching us confirmed that money was paid based on ethnic and religious consideration because only persons of a particular ethnic group currently run the campaign of Mr Peter Obi in cohort with the national chairman,” the Gombe Labour Party chairman explained.