Attack on Peter Obi: APC returning Nigeria to dark days - ADC chieftain

---

By Madu Obi

A founding member and former National Publicity Secretary of African Democratic Congress, ADC, Chief Anayo Arinze, has described Tuesday's attack on the former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in Edo State as a serious sign that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, wants to derail the country's democracy.

Arinze said the attack by yet to be identified persons came to him as a rude shock, warning that enough is enough.

According to him, leaders in a democratic dispensation must derive their mandates from the votes of the electorate, not on gun points.

He said: "The news of the attack on Mr. Peter Obi, an ADC presidential hopeful and other ADC coalition chieftains in Benin City, Edo State, by yet to be identified hoodlums, came to me as a rude shock.

It is a shocker because Nigerians thought that the era of political hooliganism and thuggery is over in our nation.

It is very unfortunate that the APC governments at both Edo State and at the national level are returning our democratic experiment to the dark days of political hooliganism, thuggery and assassinations, just because they want to hold on to power in 2027."

He called on the new Inspector General of Police, the Director General of DSS and other security operatives to unravel the mystery of what he described as an assassination attempt on Peter Obi and bring the culprits to book.

Arinze said it would be dangerous to sweep the act under the carpet, warning APC governments at all levels to desist from actions that could truncate democracy in Nigeria.

"The APC-led governments must know that nobody has monopoly of violence. They should not pull our country into undue political crises that will consume all of us. Enough of this unwarranted provocation by APC leaders who know that their time is up in Nigeria.

"Nigerians are experiencing enough insecurity in their land through insurgency, banditry and youth restiveness. They do not wish to experience any eruption of political hooliganism and violence in any part of Nigeria.

APC leaders must embrace the reality that the ADC coalition is simply a movement by Nigerians to recover their land from the punitive regime of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and any attack on any of the ADC coalition leaders is an attack on the entire nation", he added.

He recalled that when the governor of Edo State, Monday Okpebholo, last year, warned Peter Obi never to come to Edo State without his express approval, otherwise his safety would not be guaranteed by him, Nigerians thought that it was an empty threat.

"One would not be wrong to assume that the recent assassination attempt on Peter Obi at an ADC function, and up to the house of Chief Odigie Oyegun, the former governor of the state, was a fulfilment of the threats of the governor," he stated.