By Gideon Maxwell
May 2, 2026
Former Rivers State governor and former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said he has faced repeated online attacks from supporters of Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, but has intentionally refrained from responding.
He spoke on Friday at a Lagos town hall organised by his supporters under the African Democratic Congress progressive movement, where he outlined a deliberate communication approach within his camp.
Amaechi said his supporters have been instructed to avoid social media confrontations and instead concentrate on factual and issue driven engagement.
“My people don’t fight. Have you seen any Amaechi person fighting on social media? It is between Atiku people and the Obi people. And Obi people are abusing me; we never reply,” he said in a video shared on X by CRA27 Advocacy, his campaign organisation.
“It’s not because we don’t know English or we cannot reply. The reason we don’t reply is that we always want peace.”
He explained that the restraint is calculated, aimed at preserving cohesion within the opposition as political alignments build towards the 2027 elections.
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“There are things you say when you want to win, because it becomes difficult to bring everybody together. Because we know we will win, we’re not abusing everybody, so we can bring everyone together. I’m careful what I say,” he stated.
“My team is under permanent instruction: don’t abuse anybody in ADC. Even Mr President, don’t abuse the president, show the facts.”
Amaechi, who lost the All Progressives Congress presidential primary in 2023 to President Bola Tinubu, formally joined the African Democratic Congress on March 6 and is now in contention for the party’s 2027 presidential ticket alongside Peter Obi and former vice president Atiku Abubakar.
Addressing supporters at the Lagos meeting, he urged Nigerians to assess candidates based on their performance in previous public offices.
“Compare me to Peter Obi, we were governors at the same time. If he’s a better governor, please choose him. Although the former vice president was not a governor, he was once a vice president. Compare my role as governor, as minister, with the role he played as vice president. If he’s a better person, please choose him,” he said.
He also pointed to his involvement in key infrastructure projects during his tenure as minister of transportation.
“When you are sleeping, I’m running on this track, coming back to Lagos by 2 a.m. As minister, from Ibadan, making sure this job was completed on time, I wasn’t sitting in my office writing or reading memos. I made sure that either once or twice a month, I’m on this track. When we were building Kaduna Kano, the same thing,” he said.
Amaechi further described himself as a leader who remains closely connected to everyday realities.
“I’m young. I’m on the street. I know what the problems are. As a minister, as a former governor, I eat in the same restaurants people eat. I don’t go to all these big men’s restaurants because they don’t give me the kind of food I ate when I was small,” he added.
He also cautioned supporters of both Obi and Atiku Abubakar against actions that could weaken opposition unity ahead of the general election.
“If you cause this kind of friction, it will be difficult to come together to defeat Tinubu. Focus on defeating Tinubu. On the day of the primary, go and vote for your own candidate, so that when your candidate wins, you’ll be able to bring everybody together,” he said.
Amaechi warned that the tone set by supporters often shapes political relationships, noting that persistent hostility could undermine future cooperation within the opposition bloc.
