Why UK Govt. Shut Down Peter Obi's Firm - LP Campaign Team
The Labour party campaign Council has explained why the party's flag bearer, Peter Obi's company, Next international ltd, was shut down.
TalkGlitz had reported that the company was shut down by the government of the United Kingdom over its failure to submit its annual accounts to the government.
The company was reportedly removed from the record in September 2021, following a first and second gazette notice of a “compulsory” strike off of the entity.
In the UK, a compulsory strike-off is imposed on a company by creditors or by the Companies House for non-submission of annual accounts or failure to notify the Companies House about a change of official registered office address.
Once a company is struck off, its details will be removed from the Companies House register and the company ceases to exist.
Reacting to the liquidation of the company, Diran Onifade, head of the Obi-Datti media office, in a statement on Thursday said the company was voluntarily liquidated by its owners and not by authorities in the UK as the company was no longer in operation.
“Agents of the political opposition unsettled by the high-rising profile of the Labour Party flag bearer were only trying to make political capital out of the development,” Onifade said.
“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.
“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 as 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.”