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Peter Obi has criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over renewed attacks across parts of the country, recalling the President’s recent assurance that the violence in Jos would not recur.
In a statement posted on X on Monday, Obi said the resurgence of killings within days of the President’s promise highlights a failure of leadership and responsibility.
Quoting Tinubu’s earlier remark, Obi said: “‘This Experience Will Not Repeat Itself’ — another presidential promise fails in less than 24 hours.”
Read Also: Wike Bows To Pressure, Clarifies Threat To Shoot Journalist
He noted that shortly after the President addressed victims in Jos on April 2 and pledged that such incidents would not happen again, another attack reportedly occurred in Nyamgo Gyel, Jos South Local Government Area, leading to further casualties.
Obi added that the violence has since spread to other parts of the country, citing incidents in Nasarawa, Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Kaduna states.
“Less than 24 hours after President Tinubu stood… and promised the grieving Nigerian citizens, ‘I promise you that this experience will not repeat itself,’ another brutal attack occurred,” he said.
Highlighting the scale of the insecurity, Obi said several communities have recorded killings, abductions, and destruction of property in recent days.
“This represents a failure of leadership and responsibility, and sadly, Nigerians are paying for it with their lives,” he stated.
The former Anambra State governor stressed that the government’s primary duty to protect lives and property is not being fulfilled.
“The primary responsibility of any government is to protect lives and property; however, this responsibility is failing today. Nigerians are being slaughtered in their homes, in their communities, and in the very places they should feel safest,” Obi said.
Describing the situation as urgent, he added: “This is a national emergency. Nigeria is bleeding, and the situation is worsening and increasingly helpless.”
Obi’s comments come amid growing concerns over insecurity in several regions, following a series of attacks that have left many dead and others displaced.
Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has clarified comments he made about Channels Television’s anchor, Seun Okinbaloye.
Wike had said he would have “broken his TV screen and shot” Okinbaloye, over his comments that a one-party system would destroy democracy in Nigeria.
The statement has attracted widespread condemnation, with Amnesty International describing the minister’s remarks as “reckless and violent”.
But in a statement signed by his media aide, Lere Olayinka, Wike has explained that he did not mean it literally.
Read Also: ‘PDP Convention Will Hold Despite Court Threats’ – Wike Camp
The statement released by Olayinka on Saturday read: “The minister never meant that he will shoot Seun Okinbaloye. They even spoke on phone today, and he (Okinbaloye) understood what the minister meant.
“What the minister meant, which he made clear during the media chat was that he was angry seeing Okinbaloye, whom he hold in high esteem as a journalist, descending into the political arena by speaking as an interested party, instead of an interviewer.
“The statement made by the minister was in hyperbolic context, which was clearly without intent. It was primarily using exaggeration to make a point.
“Even after the minister made the clarifications on the live television program, which had Chamberlain Uzor, Head of Channels Television’s Abuja Office as part of the interviewers, all the journalists who were interviewing him just laughed.
“Therefore, after the minister detailed explanations of what he meant, including saying on the live television program that he didn’t mean that he will carry gun and shoot the television anchor, it will become a clear hatchet job for any individual or group to pick the statement out of context and make any issue out of it.
“The public is therefore urged to discontenance the use of the comment as instrument of blackmail and propaganda by those whose intent is to misrepresent facts for their political gains.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Caretaker Working Committee (NCWC), backed by FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, says its 2026 convention will go ahead as planned, brushing off reported court threats and internal divisions in a firm show of control ahead of a crucial gathering.
The convention is a test of legitimacy and unity amid rival factions, legal uncertainty and competing claims that could shape the PDP’s path to 2027.
Hon. Jungudo Haruna Mohammed, spokesman of the NCWC, made the party’s position clear at a press briefing in Abuja on Saturday, declaring that preparations were complete.
