• Thursday, March 28, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Identity theft at UK airport taught me to be extra careful — Obi

peter obi

Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party at the February 25 Nigerian presidential election, has said that the identity theft situation that got him questioned at Heathrow Airport, UK, by immigration officers in April had taught him to be extra careful.

Obi, who had never spoken about his ordeal at the hands of the immigration officers, explained what actually transpired when he appeared as a special guest on Sunday at the “Media Chat with Peter Obi” organised by Parallel Facts Media.

“I have been to the UK this year, at least four times when I went to Chatham House, when I was invited by the UK government,” the former Anambra State governor said.

“So it was a surprising thing to me to appear before the authority, and I was asked to sit down—I was surprised. But all these things happened within a few minutes because there were many dramas that happened on that trip.

“The surprising thing is for somebody to tell you that your identity has been duplicated. My first reaction was, “Well, it means nothing” until I was referred to an expert on identity duplication, who shocked me,” he said.

Read also:Court can sack Tinubu as President after inauguration; Atiku, Obi

He explained that after a brief visit to an identity duplication expert, he realised the extent to which his protractors and those hell-bent on tarnishing his image can go.

The Labour Party presidential candidate said that the duplication expert told him that one of the implications of that identity theft could be that he could be set up for a rape crime in any country.

He further went on to explain the degree of sophistication adopted by these criminals, who would go to any extent to implicate him for any serious crime in any of the western countries just to hang him.

He, however, appreciated God for saving him by exposing the evil plans of his opponents.

“I have been to the UK since then, and while they too are investigating, we hope that when I arrive after that I will be asked what went wrong,” he said. “They found out that I was duplicated, and they are looking into it.”

He added that since that unfortunate but lifesaving experience, he has learned to be extra careful, especially since his protractors, who he believes are mostly Nigerians, are not resting on their plans to bring him down.