Peter Obi, Reno Omokri in crossfire over Tinubu's failure to visit Benue genocide community

Nigeria's main opposition leader, Mr. Peter Obi and Social media warrior, Reno Omokri, have clashed over President Bola Tinubu's inability to visit Yelewata community, the killing scene of over 200 persons in Benue state.

President Tinubu visited Benue state amid fanfare which most Nigeria criticized against a mourning mood that the president was supposed to maintain in his condolence visit to Benue state.

Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, however lashed on the President for his inability to visit the incident community, ending up only in the state capital, Makurdi, instead of going to condole with the direct affected persons in Yelewata, Guma local government area of Benue state.

Tinubu had said that he was unable to get to the community because of the very bad portions of the road leading to the killing scene.

But Obi rebuked Tinubu, asking him whose duty it was to fix the roads in Nigeria if not government.

However, in defence of the President, Reno Omokri accused Obi of neglecting the killings in the south east, Anambra state in particular, on the same day but in the instead decided to poke nose into Benue state matter.

Taking to his X account (formerly Twitter), Obi said that one of the consistent principles of leadership is the willingness to make ultimate sacrifices and take risks. 

"A true leader does not make excuses or complain; he shows up, sacrifices, and provides solutions, especially in difficult times. While I do not advocate for our President to expose himself to monumental risks, I cannot accept the excuse that bad roads prevented him from reaching Yelwata in Benue State—especially after he had already made it to the state. 

"This visit happened days after the massacre, with enough time to plan appropriately. But let’s ask the fundamental question: Who is responsible for fixing the roads if not state and the federal governments? If the Commander-in-Chief cannot reach a part of his own country due to bad roads, what hope is there for the ordinary Nigerian who plies those same routes every day? 

"Leadership is not about comfort; it is about sacrifice. It is about standing with your people, especially in moments of pain and tragedy. You cannot abandon your citizens in their hour of need. You don’t offer excuses when action is required. Even if we accept that the roads were truly impassable—which they are not, as presidential aides and staff managed to navigate them—what happened to the use of helicopters? 

"Are we saying a nation that boasts of a presidential air fleet could not airlift the President to Yelwata to condole with grieving citizens? The people of Benue did not need protocol or explanations. They needed empathy. They needed presence. The roads may be bad, but what is worse is the institutional neglect that brought us to this point. A New Nigeria cannot—and will not—be built on excuses. It will be built on the sacrifices, courage, and responsibility of true leaders. A New Nigeria is Possible," Obi posted.

Angered by Obi's critique of the President, Omokri described Obi as a "monitoring spirit" around President Tinubu.

Reply Obi through the same X, Omokri said: "Again, Peter Obi, President Tinubu's monitoring spirit and content creator colleague of Peller and Jarvis, has continued criticising the President over his visit to Benue. 

"But fact-check me: there was a cult killings in Anambra yesterday, Thursday, June 19, 2025 that led to the deaths of four people. Just watch how this same Peter Obi will ignore those deaths because it occurred in Igboland, and not in his favourite whipping boys-the North and Southwest. 

"First, it was about the President's clothes, and now it is about the President not travelling all the way to Yelewata, but instead hosting a town-hall meeting in Makurdi. I am surprised that Peter Obi has not criticised the President for not crying in Benue. 

"The fact remains that Peter Obi, the man who is perpetually in black (until he went to Indonesia and started dressing like an Indonesian) does not care about the victims of the Yelewata massacre. He is more interested in politicising their suffering. 

"This is because Peter Obi knows only too well that Yelewata is currently near abandoned and that, just like a church, it is the people who make up the congregation that are the church, not the building. And it is not the physical town that makes up, Yelewata. It is the people. Since the incident occurred, the Benue State Government has moved the residents of Yelewata to camps, hospitals, and hostels in and around Makurdi. The president went to see those people. 

"But Peter Obi would not know this, because he neither went to Benue nor sent a fact-finding team there. Why? Because, other than politicising their suffering and using it for his failed 2027 Presidential ambition, Peter Obi does not really care about the people of Yelewata. 

"He also does not even care about the people of Anambra. We know this because Peter Obi was not responsive, responsible and concerned when his thugs at Awkuzu SARS killed almost a thousand young men in Anambra and dumped their bodies in the Ezu River. Did Peter Obi visit even one of the parents of these young men? The answer is no. But after President Tinubu visited Benue, Peter Obi, who travelled out of Nigeria after the Awkuzu killings were exposed, now attacks President Tinubu, accusing him of lacking Competence, Capacity, Character and Compassion."

"Nigerians should ask themselves how different Peter Obi is from the perpetrators of these Benue killings. These killers are bent on ethnic and religious war. But is that not what Peter Obi threatened to unleash on the Muslim Ummah in his leaked Yes Daddy audio? More people died at the hands of Awkuzu SARS under Peter Obi than in this present condemnable Benue crisis. Yet Peter Obi did nothing. Today, he is politicising the Benue killings. No wonder he is deservedly called Agbotikuyo: One who rejoices at the death of others!"