Peter Obi Condemns Rivers LG Polls, Calls It a “Mockery of Democracy”

Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has strongly criticised the recently concluded local government elections in Rivers State, describing the exercise as a complete mockery of democracy.

Obi, in a statement released on his official X handle late Sunday, said the polls, which were conducted under a sole administrator, amounted to “rascality taken too far” and posed a grave danger to Nigeria’s democratic development.

According to him, it was a “double tragedy” for democracy that an election meant to empower the people was instead organised by a sole administrator who, in his words, was “illegally appointed.”

“This is not democracy; it is the outright desecration of its very foundation,” Obi wrote. “Such actions are unconstitutional, legally untenable, and morally indefensible. They send a dangerous message that the rule of law can be discarded at the whim of those in power. The truth remains unshaken: illegality can never give birth to legitimacy.”

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The former Anambra State governor warned that allowing such practices to persist would only entrench lawlessness and undermine the people’s confidence in governance. He stressed that any political structure built on illegality would ultimately harm both the state and its citizens.

Obi further cautioned against Nigeria’s continued slide into what he called a “perilous path,” where elections are conducted without respect for democratic principles. He argued that democracy loses its essence when the people’s voices, particularly at the grassroots, are silenced.

“Nigeria cannot afford to pretend to practise democracy while denying the people their right to choose,” he stated. “If we truly desire progress, we must uphold the sanctity of the ballot, protect the people’s mandate, and ensure that leadership flows directly from their will, not from contraptions that mock democracy.”

He maintained that restoring the people’s trust in leadership would only be possible when elections are credible, transparent, and conducted in line with constitutional provisions. Only then, Obi said, would governance have true meaning and a “sacred bond of trust between leaders and the people” be rebuilt.