The Peter Obi Media Reach (POMR) has raised the alarm over what it described as a coordinated campaign to prevent the Labour Party presidential aspirant from addressing audiences at Nigerian public universities, saying the suppression has occurred more than ten times in recent months.
In a statement signed by its spokesman, Ibragim Umar, on Monday, POMR said the cancellation of Obi’s scheduled lecture at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) was not an isolated incident but part of a deliberate pattern that has also seen his alma mater, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), revoke his platform at the eleventh hour on multiple occasions.
“Such occurrences now point to a troubling pattern that should concern all well-meaning Nigerians,” the statement quoted Obi as saying.
POMR alleged that public institutions were yielding to external political pressure and intimidation, describing the trend as “a symptom of a deepening democratic malaise.”
The group noted the irony that Obi had been freely received as a speaker at Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale, yet faced repeated shutouts within Nigeria’s own academic spaces.
“A country that silences its thinkers and its leaders within its ivory towers is a country that risks intellectual and social stagnation,” the statement read.
POMR called on university administrators and relevant governing bodies to resist political intimidation and uphold academic freedom, insisting that “the force of argument must always supersede the argument of force.”
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