Akpabio slams Peter Obi: Resolve your party crisis before talking about Nigeria

Senate President Godswill Akpabio has urged the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, to put his house in order and not make unnecessary comments on past leaders of the country.

Akpabio said this during a valedictory session held in honour of the late leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Edwin Clark, in Abuja on Thursday, May 8, 2025.

Akpabio was also reacting to a comment Obi made at an event saying that the efforts of Nigeria’s past leaders were in vain.

The Senate President said: “Those who are aspiring as presidential candidates to cause division with their mouths using the social media, tell them to resolve the small party crisis they have before they come to talk about the larger Nigeria.

“I am saying this because I understand that just yesterday (Wednesday), one of the presidential aspirants, Peter Obi, said that the labours of our leaders who have passed on were in vain.

“They were not in vain. The mere fact that Nigeria is still standing together shows clearly that their labours were not in vain.

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“Very few countries with the size of Nigeria are still together; today, many have been fragmented.

“Edwin Clark lived through the days of the USSR. Nigeria in spite our difficulties, God has kept us together because of the voices of people like Pa Edwin clark. So clearly, his labour and labours were not in vain.

“And for those on social media, Nigeria has an unregulated social media system so let them wallow in it and then take this situation and propagate all sorts of falsehood and all sorts of narratives.

“Some of them on social media were not even born when Pa Clark was very active in service and so they couldn’t have known some of the things he did that we are remembering today.

“And yet when somebody makes a statement that the labour of our past leaders are in vain, I beg to disagree”.

Akpabio stressed that Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, should show leadership like Edwin Clark by resolving first, the crisis in the Labour Party.

“He has one of the smallest parties in Nigeria and you cannot even resolve the crisis in that Labour Party,” he added.

The Star