UPDATED: Peter Obi, Omoyele Sowore attack each other in verbal combat

Two candidates in the last presidential election, Peter Obi and Omoyele Sowore, have thrown jibes at each other, calling each other derogatory names.

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None of the two politicians mentioned each other’s names in their posts on X, on Thursday, but a review of their posts and the history behind them indicated who they were referring to.

Mr Obi threw the first salvo when he described Mr Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters, as a “blackmailer” and “self-proclaimed ‘ blackmailer-in-chief” in response to a story published by Sahara Reporters.

The platform had claimed that Mr Obi’s recent meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Rome was to allow the opposition leader to plead with the president on behalf of Fidelity Bank, a bank Mr Obi once led.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Obi and President Tinubu met coincidentally at a Vatican event for Pope Leo XIV.

In his post on X, Mr Obi denied seeking a meeting with Mr Tinubu to discuss Fidelity Bank. The former Anambra State governor said the only time he encountered the president was in a brief moment during the inauguration mass of Pope Leo XIV at Saint Peter’s Basilica.

“One such individual, whose entire life revolves around blackmail, falsely claimed that I went to Rome to have a private meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu regarding a purported ₦225 billion debt crisis involving Fidelity Bank. These claims are not only baseless, malicious, but entirely false,” Mr Obi wrote.

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“Let me categorically state that I have never sought an audience with, nor met, President Tinubu since he assumed office, except about 1 minute meeting at the arena of Saint Peter’s Basilica Rome during the inauguration Mass of Pope Leo XIV, where I was seated behind, and had to respectfully greet him, and other dignitaries present,” he added.

In his response about two hours later, Mr Sowore described Mr Obi as a “Money Launderer-In-Chief” in reference to an exclusive PREMIUM TIMES story that showed that Mr Obi violated Nigerian laws in his business dealings as the owner of NEXT. The revelation was part of the Pandora Papers, a global collaboration between investigative newsrooms and journalists that PREMIUM TIMES was part of.

Mr Obi was one of the few Nigerians indicted in the Pandora Papers reporting.

“I heard the “Money Launderer-In-Chief” at Pandora Papers and packaged fraud has fabricated another story this morning about the reason his elder brothers bounced him during his ill-fated visit to Rome,” Mr Sowore wrote.

Mr Obi was the candidate of the Labour Party during the 2023 presidential election while Mr Sowore ran under the platform of the African Action Congress (AAC).

As one of the 18 candidates on the ballot in the 2023 election, Mr Sowore finished the race in 16th place with only 14,608 votes, less than half of the 33,953 votes he scored when he contested in 2019.

Mr Obi won over 6.1 million votes in the last presidential election, finishing third behind the winner, Bola Tinubu, and Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s perennial opposition candidate.

While Mr Obi was a member of Nigeria’s former ruling party, now opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr Sowore has been on a different platform with the Nigerian political establishment since the current democratic dispensation.

The duo campaign against corruption, advocate for inclusion of young people in government, and their political campaigns have been driven by a multitude of online followers. In the last election, Mr Obi got endorsements from well-known figures including former president Olusegun Obasanjo, author Chimamanda Adichie, singer Peter PSquare, actress Kate Henshaw and several others.

While Mr Sowore stood against the idea of forming alliance with major Nigerian politicians, Mr Obi is believed to be in talks with other major opposition political parties ahead of the 2027 election.