ABUJA — The Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has sharply criticised President Bola Tinubu and Benue State Governor Rev. Father Hyacinth Alia over what he described as a lack of compassion during the president’s condolence visit to Benue State.
Obi, in a strongly worded post on his verified X handle, accused both leaders of turning a solemn occasion into a campaign-style event, despite the massacre of about 200 people by suspected armed herdsmen.
While President Tinubu visited Benue on Tuesday to commiserate with the victims and their families, Obi said the visit was marked by spectacle rather than mourning.
“We pleaded that the president should show leadership and visit Benue and Niger States in the spirit of deep national mourning… But what we saw was a display that would have been more befitting for commissioning a road project than mourning slain citizens,” Obi wrote.
He criticised the president for arriving in “celebratory agbada attire,” and faulted the state government for declaring a public holiday, shutting schools, and organising children to perform for the visiting delegation.
“Instead of silence and solemnity, there were banners, music, and rehearsed spectacles,” Obi lamented. “In what kind of country does this happen?”
Obi also questioned the use of state resources for what he called a “charade,” arguing that they could have been better used to provide food, shelter, medical care, and trauma support to grieving families.
Drawing comparisons with international responses to similar tragedies, Obi praised the more subdued and empathetic approaches of leaders like South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We are not at war, yet our nation is bleeding — and we are clapping,” Obi said. “These were human beings… whose blood cries out for justice.”
He concluded by warning that when national tragedies are reduced to “campaigns or festivals,” the nation risks losing its moral compass.
