Former Labour Party gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has clarified growing public curiosity over Peter Obi’s use of private jets, stating that the former Anambra governor does not personally own one—not due to financial constraints, but as a matter of principle.
Speaking during an appearance on the Pulse Nigeria Podcast on Monday, August 4, 2025, Rhodes-Vivour said: “That’s a very very very fantastic question and I’m very glad I have the opportunity to clear some of that. Um Peter does not own a jet not because he can’t afford one but doesn’t believe he needs to own a jet. Um the success and the wealth that he has, he can have two jets. Datti Baba-Ahmed has two jets. When we move we move in a jet convoy. If you see him come out from a jet, it’s probably Datti’s jet or someone sent a jet for him.”
He continued, defending Obi’s spending philosophy as a model of disciplined governance: “And I don’t think that takes away from anything. He will tell you that if he’s traveling, his own principle is if I travel more than 6 hours, I go business, right? Um and that’s fine. I think that people are just not used to seeing a person with that level of wealth operate and manage resources and hates waste as much as he does. And that is a personal thing. That is an Obi thing.”
Rhodes-Vivour further explained that Obi’s minimalist approach is not a political performance but a deeply personal ethic: “When the lights are off, if you are not in politics, you are not in government, that is him. That is him as a human being.”
He concluded by contextualizing Obi’s lifestyle against Nigeria’s economic realities: “And it just so happens that that is what Nigeria needs now because of the wasteful years, the termite locust years that we’ve had as a people. If we’re people that have had shrewd managers for a very long time, people be like, I beg, I beg, I beg. I want a president that’s going to spend small. Let him go and show off small. We want to see a presidential convoy. How far? You understand? But that’s not the reality that we have. That’s the first thing.
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