If Waziri Atiku Abubakar Listens to Dele Momodu and Runs with Obi, He May Lose Even in Adamawa – Reno Omokri

Waziri Atiku Abubakar is formidable, and I would never criticise him based on the immense respect I have for him, but watching Dele Momodu’s interview on Channel Television’s Sunday Politics yesterday, where he boasted that an Atiku-Obi ticket would defeat President Bola Tinubu, just goes to show how gullible Mr Momodu is.

I do not know if Mr Momodu has ever lived in Northern Nigeria. I have. Northern Nigeria places value on politics. Yes! But there is one thing they place value on above politics, and that is religion. To be specific, Islam.

Islam in the geographical space now known as Northern Nigeria is exactly a thousand years old in 2026. And that faith has permeated every pore of Northern Nigeria, including its culture, history, and politics.

And to think that a joint ticket with a man like Peter Obi, who was caught on a leaked audio vowing to unleash religious war on the Muslim Ummah, is going to unseat a strong incumbent just confirms that Dele Momodu should have stuck to glamour journalism rather than make a pivot to politics.

On what grounds does Mr Momodu think that the average core Northern Muslim would vote for a man who, in his most candid moments, revealed the almost genocidal plans he has for the faith that has guided them for a millennium?

And rather than help himself after that Saturday, April 1, 2023, Yes Daddy audio leak that made a very nasty April Fool’s joke at Mr Obi’s expense, Peter Obi has taken even more dramatic action to alienate the Muslim Ummah in the North by choosing positions that threaten their social structure.

For example, Nnamdi Kanu, the convicted leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra movement, has repeatedly said some of the most horrific things about Northerners, Hausas, Fulanis, and Islam. Beyond uttering the vitriol that he aimed against the North, he has repeatedly called for killings against Northern Muslims serving in the nation’s military and paramilitary services, as well as encouraged acts of violence against civilians.

When these attacks led to the killings of Harira Jubril, the pregnant Arewa woman from Adamawa, and her four underage daughters, including Fatima, 9; Khadijah, 7; Hadiza, 5; and Zaituna, 2, who were killed in broad daylight at Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Mutanen Arewa saw how Peter Obi behaved.

A man who IMMEDIATELY called out Northern Muslims over the Thursday, May 12, 2022, stoning/burning death of Deborah Samuels for blasphemy in Sokoto State, kept quiet when suspected IPOB/ESN elements killed Harira in his home state.

Please fact-check me: Peter Obi refused to even acknowledge that the incident ever occurred until I publicly and consistently called him out for his hypocrisy. And then he released a tepid, feckless statement, blaming nobody. The exact opposite of the statement he rehearsed after the Deborah Samuel incident.

Till today, nobody has been arrested or prosecuted over the murder of Harira and her children.

And after such an injustice to the family of Harira Jubril, Peter Obi, on Sunday, July 6, 2025, while speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, said Nnamdi Kanu’s trial for terrorism ‘makes no sense.’

Does Dele Momodu think that the people of Adamawa and indeed all Mutanen Arewa have such a short memory?

I remind Dele Momodu that he himself called Aisha Yesufu “rambunctious” when she claimed that Peter Obi was the best of the lot in the African Democratic Congress.

Dele Momodu then went on to list those in the ADC who, in his view, are better than Peter Obi, including Waziri Atiku Abubakar, Nasir el-Rufai and Rotimi Amaechi, and said that mentioning Peter Obi as the best in the ADC is an insult.

In case Mr Momodu has forgotten his words, he can read them here, before ‘insulting’ us with his new take on Obi.

With all due respect, if Waziri Atiku Abubakar makes the mistake of running with Peter Obi in 2027, he may lose even Adamawa because of the political liability that Peter Obi has become in the North.

Adamawa residents already had a particular dislike for Peter Obi because of his reaction to the 2021 murder of Ahmed Gulak, my late colleague, in Owerri, Imo State.

Gulak was from Adamawa.

Now, add that to the repeat of the same behaviour after the Sunday, May 22, 2022, murder of Harira and her underage children by suspected IPOB/ESN elements in Peter Obi’s home state and his refusal to condemn the incident, and anybody tying themselves to Peter Obi is playing with fire.

Dele Momodu, being a flamboyant character, must not understand that still waters run deep.

Arewa has a long and deep memory. They do not easily forget insults, slights, and offences.

Peter Obi can donate as many broken-down boreholes as he likes, and visit as many masjids as he likes to break fast with Muslims. But all of those political gimmicks will not make Arewa forget that Obi promised to wipe them and their religion out via a religious war, and his actions since then have demonstrated quite clearly that he said what he meant and meant what he said.

For the proponent of ‘Church, take back your country’ politics, Arewa votes are an anathema!

Nigeria, as one of the most multicultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and multiracial countries on Earth, needs leaders who are sensitive to these differences, and Peter Obi is certainly not one of them, no matter what characters like Dele Momodu may say!

Reno Omokri

Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year, 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.