The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi has cleared the air that his phones were not stolen at the Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday.

In a video which went viral on social media yesterday, the former governor of Anambra State was seen searching for his two phones at the tribunal.

Obi, who 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.

It was after the court’s proceedings that he discovered his phones was missing. “I came in with two of them (phones) here,” he told Baba-Ahmed.

However, speaking through his media aide, Tai Obasi, Peter Obi said the phones, believed to have gone missing, were in the custody of his aide.

The aide said: “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.