The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, says his mobile phones were not stolen at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday.
Obi, who spoke through his media aide, Tai Obasi, told the newsmen that the phones, believed to have gone missing, were in the custody of his aide.
The media had been awash with videos and memes of the perplexed former governor of Anambra State searching for his phones at the tribunal, with many people concluding that they were probably stolen in the court while exchanging pleasantries with party supporters.
Obi, who was dressed in his usual black attire sat close to his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, National Chairman of LP, Julius Abure and renowned writer, Chimamanda Adichie, throughout the court’s proceedings.
Reacting to the drama, Obasi dismissed the report, saying the phones were never stolen.
According to him, it is normal for one to look for an item, especially when one has the notion that it is misplaced.
“To start with, he never lost his phone. What happened is that one of his aides, who usually goes around with him, was with me in the court. Usually, he keeps his phone on the table in front of him. So when his aide noticed that a lot of people were coming to greet him and his mind was off the phone, he took it for safekeeping.
“Unfortunately, the aide wasn’t with him when he started looking for the phone. So he didn’t really know it was the aide that kept it.
“The whole drama didn’t take up to two minutes before the aide, who went to urinate, came back with the phone. But before, Obi’s anxiety over the missing phone became noticeable. I believe that was when whoever took the video came into the picture. The videographer, journalist, or whoever took the viral clip only captured the part where he was looking for the phone and started trending with it. They were circulating the report long before we left the court,” he said.
On how the video trended in a negative manner it did, Obasi disclosed that they were not surprised.