The Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign team has explained why Next International Ltd, a company owned by Peter Obi, the flag bearer of the party, was shut down.
The company was said to have been closed by the United Kingdom government over its failure to submit its annual accounts.
Premium Times had reported that the company was removed from the record in September 2021 following a first and second gazette notice of a “compulsory” strike off of the entity.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Thursday, the Head of Obi-Datti Media Office, Diran Onifade, dismissed reports that the company was liquidated by UK authorities.
“When our principal insists that you go and verify facts about him and the information he dishes out, he didn’t say go and falsify facts,” Onifade said.
“For the record, the entity was 99 per cent owned by Next Nigeria International Ltd and established as its buying office in the 90s and Peter Obi was its CEO.
“At the time Peter Obi became governor of Anambra State in 2006, his wife assumed management of the winding down of the company and about one year ago requested that the company be dissolved under the voluntary strike off of the entity on grounds of dissolution and being inoperational, which is normal in winding up an entity.
“Peter Obi has consistently maintained that he is no longer involved in any Next-related business. The LP candidate by his antecedents in Anambra state for eight years, in private ventures where he held sway his records among the pack in this race for the Presidency, puts him miles ahead in moral rating.”
