Peter Obi Faults Bishop Kukah, Says Democracy Is Failed In Nigeria

Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has said democracy has failed in Nigeria, under the current administration.

Naija News reports that Obi recalled the intervention of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Senate President Ken Nnamani to prevent his impeachment when he was governor.

The former Governor of Anambra State said unlike in the current administration, in which a president suspended a governor, the court was largely free from corruption under Obasanjo and former President Musa Yaradua.

He stated this on Monday while speaking as one of the panelists, at Emeka Ihedioha‘s 60th birthday democracy colloquium, in Abuja.

The Labour Party’s former presidential candidate disagreed with the Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto Archdiocese, Hassan Matthew Kukah, who said democracy has not failed but was a work in progress.

His words: “Well, if you look at what Bishop Kukah has said, he says it’s a work in progress. Let me use, follow my brother when he said about 1999. If you look at where we are today, it’s like, they started in 1999, laid the foundation. Some people came and took it to a decking. And some people were trying to raise it to first floor. And some people came and knocked everything down. That’s the situation we are now. Everything was knocked down. Nothing works.

“And I’m somebody who can say this exemplary. I became a governor through the court when President Obasanjo and Atiku were in government. I did not pay the court one naira, I was sitting in my house, in the office, and the court declared me winner. When a governor is hosting them. It can’t happen in Nigeria today.

“When I was being impeached, the president sent people to come and intervene on my behalf. Ken Namani came, begging the House people not to impeach me. Today, the president impeaches the person. So that is the thing. So it’s collapsed. So it’s failed. They were begging my House not to impeach me. And they were in PDP. I was in APGA. And they were begging. President was calling me, Peter, are you okay? Even when I was impeached, President Obasanjo called me and said, are you okay? Are you safe?

“When I go back from the court, when the court eventually declared me under Andy Ubah, President Yaradua, called my phone in London and said, come back. I said, President, I can’t come back because, you know, if I come back. He said, tell me the flight in which you’re coming back. And I told him, when I came, it was the first time military people came to receive me at the airport. I couldn’t believe it. And took me straight to him. Now, the President will ask me not to come back here again. So, it failed. Let’s talk about how we are going to rebuild it. It’s collapsing.”