Peter Obi speaks on liquidated UK company

Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has reacted to media reports about the liquidation of his company Next International (UK) Ltd.

The company was reported to have been removed from the record by the British government in September 2021, following a first and second gazette notice of compulsory strike-off for failing to submit its annual accounts for the year 2020.

A statement issued late Wednesday by Obi-Datti Media Office, however, argued that the company was not liquidated by UK authorities, explaining that the owners voluntarily liquidated the firm as it was no longer in operation.

The statement signed by head of Obi-Datti Media Office Diran Onifade said: “For the record, the entity was 99% 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.”

The statement noted that “Peter Obi has consistently maintained that he is no longer involved in any Next-related business.”

It added: “When our Principal insists that you go and verify facts about him and the information he dishes out, it didn’t say go and falsify facts.

“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.”