Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has claimed that Oyo State Guv, Seyi Makinde, exposed to him that he has actually not gotten a single call from President Bola Tinubu because the abduction of 37 students and instructors in the state more than 50 days earlier.
Obi made the disclosure in a highly worded statement titled “Worsening Leadership Crisis in the Country Now Evident,” in which he criticised the Federal Government’s reaction to the getting worse security circumstance and explained the nation’s leadership as lacking compassion and urgency.
According to Obi, the prolonged captivity of the abducted victims and the alleged lack of direct presidential engagement with the Oyo governor underscore what he described as a growing management failure.
“The ultimate cost of uncompassionate management, as apparent in the nation today, is turning citizens’ disappointment into deep, unpredictable resentment,” Obi stated. “It is even more traumatising when the leader commanding that collapse shows clear incapacity and an absence of compassion.”
The former Anambra State guv noted that the people of Oyo State need to understandably feel abandoned after more than 50 days without what he described any tangible progress in securing the release of the abducted schoolchildren and teachers.
Obi revealed that he had openly attended to the incident on 2 occasions, including enticing directly to the kidnappers to launch the victims. He also stated he connected to Governor Makinde twice to reveal solidarity, stressing that the incident represents not just an Oyo State crisis however a nationwide tragedy.
He exposed that on Friday, July 3, he travelled to Ibadan together with distinguished political economic expert, Prof. Pat Utomi, to meet Guv Makinde and talk about the security circumstance.
According to Obi, the meeting lasted about 2 hours, throughout which he shared his experiences in dealing with insecurity while acting as Governor of Anambra State.
He remembered that during his tenure, previous Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan personally called state governors whenever significant security difficulties occurred.
Nevertheless, Obi said he was surprised to discover that Guv Makinde supposedly had not received any call from President Tinubu because the abduction.
“To my utmost shock, I discovered that, contrary to my presumption that they had actually remained in routine communication over the matter, Governor Seyi Makinde had actually not received a single call from President Bola Tinubu,” Obi mentioned.
Drawing comparisons with the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction, Obi remembered that although then-President Goodluck Jonathan faced criticism for taking control of two weeks to call the Borno State governor, security agencies at the time supplied regular updates on rescue efforts.
He even more declared that President Tinubu was among those who strongly criticised Jonathan’s handling of the Chibok incident and required his immediate resignation.
“I vividly remember that the current President, Bola Tinubu, led a group of vocal critics who called for President Jonathan’s instant resignation over the incident, citing his hold-up in calling the state guv,” Obi said.
The previous presidential candidate alleged that Nigeria has actually recorded more than 13 school kidnapping events under the present administration, insisting that the President’s alleged failure to get in touch with affected governors shows an absence of seriousness in attending to the nation’s security crisis.
Explaining the circumstance as “outrageous,” Obi argued that governance has “totally collapsed” under the present administration.
“I can not envision any problem more vital than the lives of our kidnapped kids, their instructors, and the many other Nigerians being cooped throughout the country,” he stated.
“It is now an indisputable truth that governance has completely collapsed under this administration. The scenario reflects a total absence of capability and empathy, compounded by glaring insensitivity.”
Obi concluded by advising President Tinubu to either resign or, at the minimum, refrain from looking for re-election, maintaining that his appeal was motivated by patriotism instead of politics.
“In the middle of such an apparent screen of incompetence, the President should either resign or, at the very least, abstain from seeking re-election for the sake of our dear country. This call is patriotic, not political. A New Nigeria is Possible.”
Since the time of filing this report, the Presidency has not provided an official response to Obi’s claims, including his assertion that Guv Makinde had actually not gotten a phone conversation from President Tinubu following the kidnapping.