Peter Obi Challenges Tinubu Government to Strengthen, Not Destroy, the Opposition

Former Anambra State Governor and African Democratic Congress member Peter Obi has issued a pointed challenge to the administration of President Bola Tinubu, calling on the ruling government to actively support the growth and functionality of opposition parties rather than working to undermine them.

Obi made the remarks in a Monday interview on Arise TV, amid the escalating leadership crisis rocking the ADC, a crisis the party has directly linked to what it describes as deliberate interference by the Tinubu administration.

“The government should ensure the protection of the opposition. In fact, they should make the opposition stronger, make it work,” Obi said, in a statement that cut to the core of growing anxieties about the health of Nigeria’s democratic landscape ahead of the 2027 general elections.

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To underscore his point, Obi drew a historical comparison, invoking the approach of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua widely remembered for his commitment to democratic norms as a template the current government should emulate. He recalled Yar’adua’s instruction to the then INEC that parties should be allowed to remain stable and function properly as a prerequisite for free and credible elections.

“I’ve been in party dispute before under President Yar’Adua. I recall him telling the then INEC that I don’t want any problem in any party. I want the parties to be stable and function very well and we have free and credible elections,” Obi said.

The former governor did not mince words in his assessment of the current trajectory of Nigerian democracy, accusing those in power today of doing precisely what they once condemned when they were in the opposition. “Look at what has happened to our democracy. It is not being destroyed. Being destroyed by those who yesterday were victims of similar things, shouting to the world,” he said.

The ADC, which has been engulfed in a bitter leadership dispute between factions loyal to former Senate President David Mark and a rival group, has repeatedly accused the Tinubu-led Federal Government of planting operatives within the party to trigger internal crises and weaken the opposition ahead of 2027. The commission’s handling of the ADC’s recognition dispute has also attracted criticism from civil society and legal observers.

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For his part, President Tinubu has denied any deliberate move to foster a one-party political environment in Nigeria. However, in what critics have called a contradictory position, the President has also publicly expressed satisfaction that the opposition is fragmented and stated that resolving opposition parties’ internal crises is not within his remit as president.

Obi’s intervention adds a significant voice to the growing chorus of concern from political actors, civil society organisations, and democracy advocates who warn that a weakened, destabilised opposition is ultimately bad for Nigeria’s democratic health regardless of which party is in power.