Mr. Peter Obi’s media aide has pleaded with detained All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for Anambra Central, Chief Victor Umeh, to leave his boss alone. Mr. Valentine Obienyem was reacting to the news by Chief Victor Umeh who, speaking through his Media Assistant, Mr. Stan Okeke, said Obi was behind his travails and his arrest yesterday by the Department of State Service (DSS).

His full statement issued in the wee hours of this morning reads: “I read the news credited to Mr. Stan Okeke that Mr. Peter Obi was behind the arrest of Chief Victor Umeh. Let me state for the avoidance of doubt that Mr. Peter Obi has not, and is not contemplating writing any petition against anybody. He did not do so as a Governor, and could not have started doing so now.

If you have been following political development in Anambra State in the last one month, you would have noticed Chief Victor Umeh’s obsession with Mr. Peter Obi for reasons only him and his associates/aides know. Within the one month under review, Chief Umeh has said all sorts of despicable things against Obi. While campaigning in Agulu (Obi’s home town), he referred to Peter Obi as a useless man and said that 1,000 Peter Obi’s would not stop him. At another place, he said that Obi was possessed by the devil and needed to be exorcised.

“When the Peoples Democratic Party went to court for the sole reason that the party should be allowed to be part of the election, Chief Victor Umeh said it was Obi that actually went to court in a case that will not affect his candidature in any way. He even went on to say other unprintable things about Obi, including how, in his imagination, Obi suborned judicial officers.

“Reviewing Umeh and his political associates’ activities against Obi, one would easily notice the desperation to impugn Obi's integrity, destroy him politically and pitch the masses against him. Even when Obi has chosen the option of ignoring them, they are becoming more desperate and are seeing to contrive one scandal or another against him. The other day, they sponsored the story of Obi’s alleged divorce/estrangement with his wife.

“That Obi is loved among his people and Nigerians is not the reason why some people, after it downed on them that they could not destroy him, are plotting to pitch him against his people and Nigerians.”

•Photo showsPeter Obi.