By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has renewed his call for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to resign, saying worsening governance failures, rising corruption revelations and the administration’s handling of insecurity have shown that the President has failed Nigerians.
Writing on his X handle in a post titled “Worsening Leadership Crisis in the Country Now Evident,” on Monday, the former Anambra State governor said the consequences of uncaring leadership were becoming increasingly visible across the country.
He maintained that the appeal was not politically motivated but was driven by what he described as Nigeria’s best interest.
“The ultimate consequence of uncaring leadership, as observed in our nation today, is the transformation of citizens’ frustration into intense, volatile resentment. It becomes even more distressing when the leader presiding over such a collapse shows clear incapability and a lack of empathy,” he said.
Obi argued that the government and people of Oyo State had every reason to feel aggrieved and abandoned more than 50 days after 39 schoolchildren and seven teachers were kidnapped from their school in the state on May 15, 2026, with no substantial rescue effort yet to bring them home.
He said he had publicly addressed the crisis twice since the abduction, including a direct appeal to the kidnappers to release the children, and had also contacted Governor Seyi Makinde twice to express solidarity, stressing that the matter was not only an Oyo concern but a national tragedy.
The NDC Presidential Candidate said he travelled to Ibadan on Friday, July 3, with Professor Pat Utomi to personally sympathise with the governor after more than seven weeks had passed without the children’s return and with many others still in captivity across the country.
During the two-hour meeting, Obi said he shared his experience in handling insecurity while serving as governor of Anambra State and recalled that former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan would personally call him several times whenever security threats arose.
To his surprise, Obi said Governor Makinde had not received any call from President Tinubu over the Oyo abduction crisis.
He compared the current situation with the 2014 abduction of the Chibok girls under former President Goodluck Jonathan, saying that despite daily security briefings, Jonathan was criticised for waiting 19 days before contacting the then-Borno State governor.
Obi recalled that Tinubu, then an opposition leader, and his allies had demanded Jonathan’s immediate resignation over what they described as a failure of leadership and compassion.
“I vividly recall the singular incident of a school abduction during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure—the case of the Chibok girls,” Obi said. “I vividly remember that the current President, Bola Tinubu, led a vocal brigade demanding President Jonathan’s immediate resignation over the incident, citing his procrastination in contacting the state governor. Such a demand for immediate resignation should indeed apply to the current situation.”
He said the same standard should now be applied to the Tinubu administration, noting that more than 13 school kidnapping incidents had occurred under the current government, yet the President had found it difficult to reach out to the chief executive of the affected state even after more than 50 days.
According to him, the failure to respond decisively to repeated school abductions suggested a troubling pattern and raised questions about the administration’s capacity and empathy.
“There is reason to suspect that similar patterns may exist in other school abduction cases,” he said.
He said no issue was more urgent than the safety of kidnapped children, their teachers and other Nigerians currently held captive across the country, adding that governance had “completely unravelled” under the present administration.
He said the situation reflected a profound lack of competence and compassion, worsened by what he described as overt insensitivity, and insisted that the President should either resign or, at the very least, not seek re-election.
“This appeal is motivated by patriotism, not politics,” Obi said. “A new Nigeria is possible.”
