The Labour Party (LP) Campaign Council has described the viral audio of a purported conversation between Peter Obi and Bishop David Oyedepo as a deep fake.
The head of the LP campaign, Diran Onifade, and the council’s chief spokesman, Yunusa Tanko, released a statement on Sunday accusing political detractors of doctoring the audio to tarnish Obi’s image.
They also linked the action of the man who called for an uprising on an aircraft to the political detractors.
“While we are toeing the constitutional path to retrieve our mandate, those who have truncated the wishes of the majority of Nigerians have recoursed to mischief and endless subterfuge to continue to hold on to what they know does not belong to them,” the statement read.
“From the show of shame in Port Harcourt to the drama in the Ibom Air aircraft, both of which they contrived, they have now moved to the circulation of a deep fake audio file aimed at promoting religious tension in the country.
“All these are meant to serve no other purpose than egregious mischief aimed at demarketing Peter Obi. If the goal is to create a credibility problem, the ploy has failed woefully.
In the viral clip published by People’s Gazette, a voice similar to Obi’s could be heard asking Bishop Oyedepo to speak to the Christians in the South West and Kwara State to vote for him in the presidential election.
The caller described the election as a “religious war”.
The LP’s official position came hours after one of the party’s spokespersons, Kenneth Okonkwo, had tweeted that the audio was real but was being spun to discredit his principal.
