Onifade explained that the owners voluntarily liquidated the firm as it was no longer in operation.

The Obi-Datti Media Office has revealed that owners of Next International (UK) Ltd voluntarily dissolved it.

This followed a report by Premium Times that the company was dissolved over accounting issues.

Next is one of the companies owned by Peter Obi, of Labour Party presidential candidate.

Premium Times had reported that UK authorities dissolved the UK branch of the company for failing to submit its annual accounts.

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 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.

But in a statement issued on Thursday, the Head of Obi-Datti Media Office, Diran Onifade, dismissed speculations that the company was liquidated by UK authorities.

Onifade explained that the owners voluntarily liquidated the firm as it was no longer in operation.

He said “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.

He also berated those twisting the resting of Next International (UK) Ltd., saying, “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.”

The statement read, “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.”