Senator Adams Oshiomhole has taken a dig at the 2023 Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, stating that Obi’s most notable achievement as governor of Anambra State was “wearing Ojukwu’s symbol for eight years.”
Oshiomhole, a former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made this statement during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today while addressing criticisms of recent defections from the opposition party to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He argued that Obi also has a history of party-hopping, saying he lacks the morality to speak against the defection of politicians to the APC.
The former Edo State governor also noted that he wondered if the Obidient Movement has now become a political party itself.
Oshiomhole also claimed that Obi’s most notable achievement as Anambra State governor was aligning himself with the legacy of the late Biafran leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.
“My very dear friend Peter Obi, who governed Anambra for eight years, when he was there, he was only wearing Ojukwu’s symbol,” Oshiomhole said.
“When he left, he joined PDP. When he lost in PDP, he went back to Labour. And now I don’t know what he did in Labour, and I hear about the Obidient Movement. Now I don’t know whether that is a political party.”
Oshiomhole argued that several politicians who criticise defections into the APC have themselves moved between multiple parties over the years, noting, “So all of these people, all of these people who talk now about defection, check their history.”
He also claimed that President Bola Tinubu and some of the party’s founding members have remained consistent in their political affiliations.
“It is President Bola Tinubu and a few of us who can say we have never decamped.”
"We have my very dear friend, Peter Obi, who governed Anambra for eight years. When he was there, he only wore Ojukwu's symbol. When he left, he joined the PDP, and when he lost with the PDP, he went back to the LP."
~ Adams Oshiomhole.
pic.twitter.com/p8RK0etWzO— Nigeria Stories (@NigeriaStories) May 13, 2025
The former Edo State governor also took a swipe at Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the interview, describing him as the most prominent example of political defection in the country.
Oshiomhole noted how Atiku switched from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) while serving as vice-president, calling it one of Nigeria’s most significant political moves.
“But let me remind you that those who started defection — the most popular one in the history of Nigeria — is His Excellency Atiku Abubakar,” Oshiomhole said.
“When, as a sitting vice-president of Nigeria, he decamped from PDP to ACN — which is now part of APC — was he courted by no state at all?
“Was he (Abubakar) courted by ACN, which was then led by Bola Tinubu — Asiwaju Tinubu — a non-state president at the time?”
The Edo North senator also added, “I think the best person who can write a book on why people decamp should be the former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar.”
