Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has condemned the culture of celebrating corrupt leaders in Nigeria, warning that such attitudes have deepened the nation’s poverty, unemployment, and governance crises.
Speaking in an address aired by SYMFONI TV on Sunday, August 24, 2025, Obi expressed dismay that public officials who engage in corruption and mismanagement are often hailed and celebrated instead of being held accountable.
He stated: “It’s only Nigeria that you become governor, local government chairman, and people see you if you’re doing what is wrong and continue to appraise you and tell you, your excellency, you’re the best thing that happens to everybody, even when you’re doing the wrong thing. It’s only Nigeria that you borrow, you don’t have a house, you don’t have anything, and you become governor. And suddenly you build big house, buy all the cars with their money, even invite them for Thanksgiving with their bishop and everybody. They are singing and dancing with you when they should call police because they know you stole their money. And that is why I say you don’t need to celebrate.”
Highlighting Nigeria’s worsening socio-economic indicators, Obi pointed out the alarming rate of poverty and unemployment in the country. “We have a country that is going through difficulty. No country in the world will not go through what we are going today. When you have over 100 million people living in poverty, the highest in anywhere in the surface of the earth, Nigeria has more people living in poverty than China and India combined. These two countries combined is 2.8 billion. We are 200 million. But we have more people living in poverty than two of them combined,” he said.
Obi also drew attention to the country’s education crisis. “Nigeria, as I said yesterday, had 18.5 million children out of school, out of which 10 million are women. The list is long. Nigeria has the highest unemployment today that is known in the surface of the world,” he added.
