Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has cleared the air on why he once had a meeting with the late military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha.
In a statement shared by his media aide Valentine Obienyem on Wednesday, Obi said the meeting was strictly for economic reasons and not political.
“The meeting with General Abacha was not political in nature. I had never met General Sani Abacha prior to that encounter,” Obi said.
“Our meeting with him was borne out of collective concern as traders and importers over the prolonged delays in clearing goods at the ports.”
According to him, the engagement with Abacha was initiated by stakeholders in the business sector, including himself, to tackle port congestion that was hampering trade.
He added, “We approached him not as political actors, but as concerned citizens seeking pragmatic solutions to a matter affecting economic activity and livelihoods.”
To support his statement, Obi published a dated copy of the letter officially appointing him to a taskforce on port decongestion at the time.
“The objective of the meeting was to advocate for efficiency and to propose practical steps to restore order and productivity at the nation’s ports,” he said.
“This was a civic duty driven solely by a sense of responsibility and not political ambition.”
Obienyem, in the statement, noted that critics were trying to misrepresent Obi’s past by twisting the Abacha meeting into a political alliance.
“I don’t expect this copious evidence to bury this Abacha case because the mischief makers have ulterior motives,” Obi said.
“But it’s being placed in the public space for posterity and in line with my transparency pledge to Nigerians on any issue I am involved in.”
Abacha, who ruled Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998, is widely remembered for human rights abuses and looting billions of dollars from the country’s treasury. Obi’s clarification is coming amid social media chatter that he may have had ties with the late dictator.
