The chairman of The Nation newspaper editorial board – Sam Omatseye – has asked the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) – Peter Obi – to call his supporters to order.
In a tweet Tuesday, Omatseye, who’s also a columnist with the newspaper, alleged Obi’s supporters were threatening his life.
He said if anything happened to him the former Anambra governor should be held responsible.
“Mr. Peter Obi, call your supporters to order,” Omatseye tweeted. “They are calling and issuing death threats. If anything happens to me, you will be held responsible!!!!.”
His tweet comes hours after an opinion piece he authored entitled ‘Obi-tuary” was published in The Nation on Monday.
In the article, the columnist said Obi’s candidacy had turned out to be an excuse for “closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it.”
“This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd,” the article reads.
“Obi knows this. He is happy to be their catharsis, to be their excuse for unfurling their bile at the system, for acting like revolutionaries.
“He is playing to it by acting as though he is the saint of Nigerian politics. Perhaps the purists of the Biafran cause are unhappy, and they unleashed a past video clip of Kanu on social media. In it, Kanu lashes out at Obi as governor and states what this essayist wrote about him over building a NEXT supermarket while still the governor of Anambra state.”
The article has drawn out sharp criticism from supporters of the LP presidential flag-bearer, who accused Omatseye of bias.
