Senate President Godswill Akpabio has cautioned former presidential candidate Peter Obi against making remarks that, in his view, risk deepening national divisions and sowing confusion among the populace.
Akpabio’s rebuke follows Obi’s comments at a memorial lecture honoring the late elder statesman, Edwin Clark, where the Labour Party figure decried the country’s political state, saying, “We are not a democratic country. Let’s tell ourselves the truth. The labor of our heroes past is in vain.”
Speaking during a Senate valedictory session on Thursday held in Clark’s memory, Akpabio firmly rejected Obi’s characterization of Nigeria’s democratic journey. He instead highlighted the enduring efforts of national figures like Clark, crediting their resilience and moral leadership with helping preserve the unity of the nation through decades of instability and challenge.
“I beg to disagree, let Peter Obi show leadership first by resolving the crisis in the Labour Party,” he said.
“If he is unable to resolve that crisis, is it the crisis of Boko Haram he can resolve?”
The Senate President also took aim at social media commentators, some of whom he claimed spread misinformation without understanding the country’s history.
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He claimed those “aspiring to be presidential candidates are “causing confusion with their mouths”.
Senator Akpabio asked them, “to resolve the crisis in their party first before speaking of the larger Nigeria. Tell them to resolve the small party they have in that before they come to talk about the larger Nigeria. That is what Pa Edwin Clark would have advised.”
In response to criticism from Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and others who accused him of tarnishing Nigeria’s image, former presidential candidate Peter Obi has defended his remarks, asserting that his statements reflect uncomfortable truths rather than attempts to “demarket” the nation.
Addressing a global audience during a recent engagement at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, Obi offered a stark assessment of Nigeria’s economic trajectory over the past quarter-century. He argued that the country has experienced a steady decline, culminating in an alarming surge in poverty levels.
Drawing comparisons with global counterparts, Obi stated that Nigeria now has a higher number of impoverished citizens than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined — nations that, despite their own challenges, have recorded significant strides in lifting their populations out of poverty. His remarks, though contentious, were intended, he said, to provoke honest reflection and urgent policy redirection.