The Muslim Rights Concern MURIC has asked the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, to defend the ‘take back your country’ statement to Christian clerics.

This followed the denial of the authenticity of the leaked ‘Yes Daddy’ phone conversation between Peter Obi and Pastor Oyedepo.

In a response to the denial, MURIC asked if another video clip in which Obi told Christian clerics to ‘take back your country’ is also fake.

The reaction of the Muslim group was contained in a statement issued on Wednesday April 12, 2023 by the Executive Director of the Islamic human rights organization, Professor Ishaq Akintola.

The statement read:

“The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has denied the authenticity of the leaked ‘Yes Daddy’ audio tape (https://dailytrust.com/breaking-im-under-pressure-to-go-on-exile-obi/; https://www.thecable.ng/audio-call-featuring-me-and-oyedepo-is-fake-says-obi; https://punchng.com/just-in-leaked-audio-conversation-with-oyedepo-fake-doctored-obi/.

“It will be recalled that MURIC on 5th April, 2023 asked Peter Obi and Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel to confirm or deny the authenticity of the audio tape in which Peter Obi was heard saying, ‘Yes Daddy’ to every remark made by the bishop. The LP presidential candidate called the election a ‘religious war’ to which the bishop replied ‘I believe that’. Peter Obi also told the bishop, ‘Like I keep saying if this works, you people will never regret the support.’

“Although MURIC gave Peter Obi and Bishop David Oyedepo three days, the former came up with a denial within twenty-four hours while the latter has kept mum to date.

“MURIC contends that the silence of Bishop David Oyedepo connotes confirmation while the denial by Peter Obi has been substantially diminished by the bishop’s silence.

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“This is a matter that involved two people who have been accused of doing the same thing: one is vehemently denying the incident while the other party is mum. Even if silence does not necessarily mean consent in all cases, we are certain that Nigerians are not fools.

“Perhaps the bishop is being guided by warnings against lying as contained in the Bible, such as ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. (But she died, Genesis 3:4) and ‘Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.’ (Leveticus 19:11).

“Interestingly enough, MURIC is also in possession of a video clip in which Peter Obi spoke with an assembly of Christian clerics and concluded with the words, ‘Christians take back your country’. Perhaps we should quickly ask the LP presidential candidate another question before we start interrogating the contents of both the audio and video tapes.

“This is our question: ‘Mr. Peter Obi, Sir, is this video clip also fake, doctored or counterfeited?”

Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election was one of the most keenly contested in several years since the West African country started practicing a presidential system of government. However, the poll, according to some analysts, was largely contested along ethno-religion lines.

Nigeria president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be sworn-in at the end of May this year as incumbent leader, Muhammadu Buhari sets to complete his eight years of two terms.

Integrity News reported that INEC, the electoral umpire, declared Tinubu winner of the February 25 presidential poll with 37% of the votes cast, ahead of Atiku’s 29% and 25% for Obi.