The suspended National Youth Leader of Labour Party, Anslem Eragbe, has demanded N10m refunds from the leadership of the party to enable him to offset some embarrassing online debts he incurred during their mobilisation campaign.
Eragbe made the demand in a letter addressed to the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi; his running mate, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed; National Chairman, Julius Abure; the LP National Working Committee and members of the campaign council.
This was even as the National Secretary of the party, Umar Farouk, denied the claim, saying nobody commissioned him to put up any website or spend his money for the alleged project.
Recall that the LP national youth leader was slammed with a six-month ban on October 21 over allegations bordering on forgery, opening of an illegal donation website and acts of insubordination.
Eragbe, who is also a senatorial candidate for Edo North, had fought back fiercely claiming his sanction was unconstitutional and illegal.
In the letter, which was made available to Saturday PUNCH, Eragbe bemoaned that the party failed to mobilise him for the campaign.
He noted that every dime he spent was done from out-of-pocket allowances.
The statement read, “I wish to request that only N10m be paid to me to offset initial debt incurred for the development of the Labour Party National Mobilisation website.
“You will recall that Labour Party did not mobilise me as the National Youth Leader of Labour Party till today for this website development save for the “out-of-pocket” allowance of one million naira (N1,000,000) only as the National Youth Leader of Labour Party for my official activities.
“I hereby attach some evidence of the over N5m receipts of debt owed to online financial platform institutions to the effect of my demand for payment for the website development to enable me to pay off these embarrassing debts.”
Continuing, Eragbe maintained that the LP national mobilization website had an unlimited database to warehouse over 47 million voters across the 176,846 polling units, 774 LGA, 36 states and 8,815 political wards, including the FCT.
He also disclosed that the donation portal had yet to be activated for the 2023 general elections.
“You may also wish to recall and remember that the ‘Command and Control Unit and 20 buses’ donated to the party presidential campaign committee in Asokoro and some financial support were secured through my “fund solicitation” for the deployment of these ICT solutions for the 2023 presidential and general elections and these solutions need to be deployed forthwith, should you still desire same.
“Kindly oblige me the payment of the initial outstanding N10m to enable me to offset some of this embarrassing online debt incurred for the above stated objectives.
“The Labour Party National Mobilisation LP-NG Mobile App is expected to generate an average of $80,000,000 annually for the party for a database population of a minimum of 10 million eligible voters from the 2023 national mobilization deployment,” he said.
LP reacts
Reacting, the National Secretary of the party, Umar Farouk, denied Eragbe’s claim, saying the party owed him nothing because there was no contractual agreement between them.
He said, “I didn’t see the letter you are talking about because I have not been around for a while. Secondly, I am telling you in my capacity as the National Secretary that there is no contractual agreement between him and the party to my knowledge. I am not aware of it.”
