The former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has said that the violent attack on Peter Obi, and other Coalition African Democratic Congress ADC leaders in Benin, Edo State, is utterly condemnable and unacceptable in any democracy.
Reacting to this development on X, the former vice president said that Nigeria is entering a perilous phase in which opposition voices are not only harassed through state institutions but are now being physically targeted.
According to him, “In recent times, we’ve witnessed reckless and inflammatory rhetoric from elements within the ruling party in Edo, rhetoric that dangerously legitimises violence against political opponents.
Words, when weaponized, often precede actions. What happened in Benin did not occur in a vacuum.
“Nigeria is entering a perilous phase in which opposition voices are not only harassed through state institutions but are now being physically targeted.
“The ruling APC appears to have escalated its intolerance from bureaucratic suppression to open aggression. 
Tinubu and the nation’s security chiefs bear a constitutional responsibility to guarantee the protection of lives and property without discrimination or partisanship.
“The safety of opposition leaders and supporters is not a favour; it is a democratic obligation. Nigeria must not descend into a theatre where politics is settled by violence”, he concluded.
Report has it that Peter Obi, Chief John Oyegun, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor and Olumide Akpata, were on Tuesday, 24th February, allegedly attacked by suspected thugs in Edo State.
Obi’s former campaign spokesman and National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, Dr Yunusa Tanko, disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja.
The statement read, “Peter Obi and the leadership of the ADC are under siege and attack in Benin, Edo State.
“At the formal declaration of Olumide Akpata into the African Democratic Congress, armed individuals followed us from the ADC Secretariat to residence of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
“They shot at the gate and destroyed several vehicles in what appears to be a survived assassination attempt on our lives. Democracy is in danger.”
