Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has decried the state of governance in Nigeria, attributing the nation’s challenges to years of leadership failure that have been tolerated and even celebrated by citizens.
Obi made the remarks in a public address aired by Symfoni TV on Sunday, August 24, 2025, where he lamented that unlike other countries where citizens resist bad governance, Nigerians have normalized and encouraged it.
He said: “Everywhere I go people say, how did we get here? What happened? What is happening? Every place you go is getting better except Nigeria. So what is happening in Nigeria? What you’re experiencing in this country is cumulative effect of leadership failure over the years. It is leadership failure over the years, which all of us have contributed to.”
The former governor of Anambra State stressed that the problem is not attributable to a single individual but a collective failure. “No single person contributed to it. Everybody, because while the criminality and the bad governors were going on, we were celebrating. Every other country of the world resists bad governors. But Nigeria is celebrating,” Obi declared.
