For the unprovoked reference to him as a tribal bigot, the\u00a0 Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party,\u00a0 Mr. Peter Obi, on Saturday said he owed Kaduna Governor, Mallam Nasir el Rufai prayers for the diatribe.
\nel Rufai in a tweet had described Obi as a tribal bigot who had him detained for 48 hours by security operatives in 2014.
\nThe tweet has drawn emotive comments from different commentators, depending on which political divide they belong.
\nObi In response to the tweet described the comments as hate speech even as observers say it was a barb intended to de-market Obi because of the 2019 election.
\nIt is believed el Rufai’s motive is to spoil the Atiku\/Obi chances in the north in the coming election.
\nIn Nnewi, Anambra State, Obi expressed surprise at the unprovoked attack.
\nHis words: \u201cThis is suggesting that it was what he sat down to think of rather than thinking about how to solve the many problems plaguing the country.
\n\u201cWhat His Excellency, Gov. Nasir Ahmad El Rufai said about me has been brought to my attention. I believe that as we grow older and are saddled with more responsibilities, we are expected to become circumspect in our thinking and avoid recklessness in our speeches and utterances.
\n\u201cHow does the circumstance he referred to relate to bigotry to warrant such a label?
\n\u201cAll I do for people like El Rufai is to pray for them and encourage them to concentrate on doing those things that will better the lots of Nigerians rather than engage in hate speeches that will divide and destroy the country.
\n\u201cAt this difficult times in our country, when thousands of our brothers and sisters across ethnic divide are killed\u00a0 all over the country, including innocent citizens in Kaduna state;\u00a0 millions of our\u00a0 children from all the parts of the country\u00a0 are\u00a0 out of school;\u00a0 millions of Nigerian youths from all the parts of the country are without jobs, our\u00a0 pre-occupation, especially among those that are in government should not be\u00a0 making reckless speeches.
\n\u201cWhat our leaders should be doing today is seeking solutions to the numerous problems of our dear country.
\n\u201cI am aware that during\u00a0 the said election he referred to, security agents merely\u00a0 restricted his movement\u00a0 because he had no business being in Anambra as I would not have been in Kaduna on an election day.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the unprovoked reference to him as a tribal bigot, the\u00a0 Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party,\u00a0 Mr. Peter Obi, on Saturday said he owed Kaduna Governor, Mallam Nasir el Rufai prayers for the diatribe. el Rufai in a tweet had described Obi as a tribal bigot who had him detained for 48 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}