Activist Omoyele Sowore claims Peter Obi lacks the capacity to be an effective opposition leader in Nigeria, citing his inaction on key issues

Omoyele Sowore, activist, publisher, and former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has publicly dismissed claims that Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, is currently the most prominent figure of the opposition in Nigeria.

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Speaking during an appearance on Channels Television’s “Inside Sources” program on Sunday, Sowore reiterated his stance that Peter Obi lacks the capacity to effectively play the role of opposition, despite securing over six million votes and placing third in the 2023 presidential election.

“I don’t know why anybody refers to Peter Obi as an opposition. He is not opposed to anything the government is doing. He didn’t organise his supporters to fight for the election victory he claimed,” Sowore stated, citing Obi’s failure to mobilize his supporters against the increase in fuel prices by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

Sowore argued that true opposition requires mobilization, resistance, and street action, none of which Obi has demonstrated. “If you say you’re opposition, you must act like it.

You had six million people vote for you  if you can’t put all of them on the streets, at least put 60,000 in Abuja and see how seriously the government will take you. He hasn’t done anything that an opposition figure typically does,” he asserted.

I don’t know why anybody refers to Peter Obi as an opposition. He is not opposed to anything the government is doing.

He further claimed that Obi’s support in 2023 was largely due to the backlash against the All Progressives Congress’s (APC) Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.

“There was this whole debate around the Muslim-Muslim ticket, so Christians responded by saying, ‘If you want to Islamise Nigeria, we’ll Christianise it too’. And who was the most available Christian candidate? Peter Obi,” Sowore explained.

Sowore also pointed to the ongoing defections of Labour Party lawmakers to the ruling APC as evidence that the party was not genuinely committed to playing an opposition role.

“Look at all the Labour Party people in the National Assembly  they’re not decamping back to where they came from. They’re decamping to the APC. That’s the point; these guys are not real. They weren’t real in 2023, and they won’t be in 2027,” he concluded.