No matter how the intimidations and harassments are couched, Nigerians know that Peter Obi is not their enemy. Their enemies are those behind the growing poverty in the land, widening youth unemployment, ravaging insecurity and government’s insensitivity in the midst of the crisis. If the polls would be free and transparent, these are the issues that should determine the outcome of the ballots, not the senseless attacks on Obi.
By Emeka Alex Duru
Staying away from this space for two straight weeks, was not deliberate. I had been quite indisposed. But I am gradually getting back my grooves, as members of the young generation, the Gen Zees would say. I thank God for His mercy and unfailing grace in taking care of the situation. While the indisposition lasted, bizarre news items and details associated with the 2027 politics flew across. But the scariest was the attempted assassination of the 2023 presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) and currently a leading chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Peter Obi, in Benin, Edo State, on Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Other targets like Elder statesman and former governor of Edo State, John Odigie-Oyegun equally escaped the gunfire.
According to reports, the assault on the ADC chieftains occurred shortly after the group returned from the party’s secretariat where they had formally received Olumide Akpata — the Labour Party’s candidate in the 2024 Edo governorship election — into the party. Yunusa Tanko, national coordinator of the Obidient Movement, said several vehicles were destroyed and the gate to Odigie-Oyegun’s residence was shot at. Nigerians of good conscience have been reacting to the attack, describing it as senseless and ominous to what lies ahead.
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On its own, the Department of State Services (DSS) claimed to have arrested a 26-year-old man who it said, publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. According to DSS, the nondescript suspect, identified as Udeme Stephen, was traced to Rivers State where he works as a teacher at Jessica High School in Eliozu, Obio-Akpor local government area. In one of the posts attributed to him, Udeme allegedly wrote, “We warned Obi against his entrance into Edo State but he mistook our resolves to obidiots online noise. Thank his stars he survived this one,”. In another outing on his X under the handle @stevetom788, he warned that Obi would not be spared during a forthcoming visit to Rivers State. “I learnt he’s going to my Rivers State. No wahala. Na my MEN go handle that one and dem no dey miss target”.
Now, for whatever it is worth, it is good that someone who openly acknowledged being behind the attacks, has been taken in for questioning. But he could not have been a lone actor, given the volume of impacts and narratives by Obi, Odigie-Oyegun and other targets of the attacks. There is therefore the need to dig deeper for the real brains and motives of the attempted assassination on people who have not in any way exhibited violence, verbally on in action, in going about their political engagements.
But the question is; are we totally surprised at the attempts to quieten or shut up Obi ahead of the polls? I am not sure if anyone who has been closely monitoring the serial onslaughts against him lately, should be entirely surprised. It is the dastardly dimension of going for his life that is novel in the ordeals lined up against him since his bold and well-received entry into the presidential race in 2023. The other day, Obi lamented the deluge of harassments and intimidation that have been visited on him and his family for daring to assert his constitutional rights of offering himself for election. Those antics are enough to discourage the faint-hearted but certainly not Obi, a man of quiet mien but of granite courage and steel constitution.
To the government of the day and its rabid foot soldiers, Peter Obi is the only obstacle against a no-contest agenda in which President Bola Tinubu is being programmed for easy ride for a second term. To be sure, Obi is indeed the main issue in the contest. From his days as Anambra State governor to the aspiration for the presidency in the 2023 election under Labour Party (LP) in which he rose beyond the tradition of aspersions and name-calling to a campaign that focused on challenges facing the citizenry and how to tackle them, he has come across as a new face of Nigerian politics. For his audacity in doing so and the accompanying nationwide reception which his brand of politics has earned him among the downtrodden, he has become a figure to watch in 2027. Tinubu and his supporters are not taking kindly to the Obi phenomenon, knowing that the government has performed poorly and does not stand any chance of reelection in any free and fair poll. To bring down Obi, is therefore a task that must be accomplished. It is on this ground that the armada of attacks directed at him can be appreciated.
But should Nigeria’s politics be allowed to degenerate to this piteous point? Has it got to the level of ‘get him out or take him out’? The Benin incident and the character being paraded, only scratch the matter at the surface. It is merely in line with a running patter. Don’t forget that a while ago, President Tinubu’s aide, Daniel Bwala and social media pimp, Reno Omokri, had boasted that Obi would not be on ballot in 2027. Are we seeing the gradual manifestations of the threats? Recall, also that in January last year when Obi cried out that things were going out of control in the country while state officials kept deluding the people, the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, accused him of inciting Nigerians to bring down the government, declaring; “Obi has crossed the red line so many times, whatever he has coming to him, he should manage it”.
Morka was not known to have been called to order by the security agents for the unguarded remarks. Rather, two APC governors, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia of Benue State and his Edo counterpart, Monday Okpebholo, who have been very low in public rating and their breezy route to office, saw in moving against Obi, a shortcut to relevance. In April of same year, Governor Alia issued a directive preventing Obi from visiting and impacting on inmates of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps in Benue, citing frivolous reasons.
Okpebholo followed suit by warning Obi to obtain security clearance before visiting Edo state or take whatever that comes to him. Obi’s “sin” was visiting the state capital, on July 7 and donating N15m to St. Philomena Hospital School of Nursing Sciences for the completion of some projects in the school. Okpebholo lacked the grace to appreciate the gesture, preferring to halt Obi from extending similar goodwill to other institutions in the state. The link between the threat by the governor in July 2025 and the attack on Obi on February 24, 2026 in same Edo, can therefore be imagined.
The culture of intolerance against Obi and his Igbo kinsmen can be stretched further to the puerile comments by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser (Media) to President Bola Tinubu, on the heels of the last general election when he mocked; “Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business”.
Calls on him to pull the brake on the dangerous path he was toeing did not deter Onanuga. He rather boasted; “Let me make myself abundantly clear: the views I express on Twitter are my personal views. I don’t owe anyone any apology for addressing the existential threats of our people. I am after all, first of all a Yoruba, before being a Nigerian”. For the record, Bayo Onanuga is not from Lagos. He is from Ijebu Ode, Ogun state but has appropriated the rights to live in Lagos and have a say in what happens in the state to the exclusion of others.
The entire ignoble antics point to the uncertainties ahead 2027 elections. But no matter how the intimidations and harassments are couched, Nigerians know that Peter Obi is not their enemy. They know their enemies. Their enemies are those behind the growing poverty in the land, widening youth unemployment, ravaging insecurity and government’s insensitivity in the midst of the crisis. If the polls would be free and transparent, these are the issues that should determine the outcome of the ballots, not the senseless attacks on Obi.
