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The assault on Peter Obi in Benin City is not an isolated outrage. It is the predictable consequence of reckless, incendiary politics, politics that has now been openly licensed from the top of Edo State.

When Monday Okpebholo reportedly warned in July 2025 that Mr. Obi should “take anything he sees” if he entered the state without permission, he was not merely indulging in crude bravado. He was issuing a veiled threat. In any fragile democracy, such language from a sitting governor is dangerous. In Nigeria, with its long history of election-related violence and political thuggery, it is incendiary.
Yesterday’s attack on Mr. Obi and his entourage, who were in the city to welcome defectors to the African Democratic Congress, should therefore be read not as an accident of criminality, but as the logical endpoint of a politics that treats intimidation as strategy and menace as governance.

The first responsibility of any governor is simple, to guarantee the security and civil liberties of all citizens within his territory, regardless of party, creed, or affiliation. Mr. Okpebholo has failed this test spectacularly.

By arrogating to himself the power to “permit” or “forbid” political actors from entering Edo State, he has behaved less like an elected executive and more like a primitive feudal warlord. Nigeria’s constitution does not recognise private fiefdoms. No governor owns a state and public official may determine who may campaign, organise, or assemble within it.

When violence follows such rhetoric, the moral chain of responsibility is clear. Even if the governor did not order the attack, he fertilised the ground on which it grew.

More troubling still is the muteness of the ruling All Progressives Congress. A party that claims national leadership cannot pretend neutrality when one of its governors flirts with political vigilantism.

Silence, in this context, is endorsement.

By failing to rebuke Mr. Okpebholo promptly and publicly, the APC signals that intimidation is an acceptable instrument of competition. That message will not be lost on other governors, party operatives, and local enforcers. What begins in Edo today will metastasise elsewhere tomorrow.

Democracy rests on a simple bargain; parties compete with ideas, not fists; with persuasion, not bullets. When incumbents begin to substitute coercion for argument, the system hollows out from within.

Nigeria has seen this film before.

From “area boys” in Lagos to “political task forces” in the Niger Delta, from ballot snatching to assassinations, violence has repeatedly been deployed to settle what should have been settled at the ballot box. Each time, elites promised reform, each time, impunity returned.

Mr. Okpebholo’s posture fits squarely into this grim tradition. It normalises the idea that opposition figures travel at their own peril and implies that political participation is conditional on the goodwill of those in power. Consequently, it transforms public space into hostile territory.

That is not democracy. It is soft authoritarianism, Nigerian-style.

The danger extends far beyond Peter Obi or Edo State.

If governors may threaten rivals with impunity, then campaigns will soon resemble military convoys. Where parties may tolerate such behaviour, elections will increasingly resemble territorial battles. As citizens conclude that political engagement invites physical risk because the state turns a blind eye, turnout will fall and cynicism will deepen.

The ultimate beneficiary will not be the APC, nor any opposition party, it will be disorder.

Weak states do not collapse overnight. They decay slowly, as norms are eroded, boundaries blurred, and violence quietly legitimised. Nigeria is already grappling with insurgency, banditry, and communal conflict, we cannot afford to add elite-sponsored political violence to that list.

This moment demands clarity, as a test of leadership.

Mr. Okpebholo must retract his remarks, apologise unreservedly, and demonstrate, through concrete security measures that Edo is open to all lawful political activity.

The APC must discipline him and reaffirm, publicly and unequivocally, that intimidation has no place in its ranks.

Federal authorities must investigate the attack transparently and prosecute those responsible, regardless of connections.

Anything less will be read as consent.

Nigeria stands at a familiar crossroads. One path leads towards mature, if imperfect, democratic competition, and the other leads towards gangsterised politics, where power is defended by threats and bullets.

History suggests that once a country slides too far down the second path, returning is painfully difficult.

The attack in Benin City is therefore not merely an affront to one man, it is a warning to the republic.

If governors behave like warlords, parties behave like syndicates, and violence becomes routine, then elections become rituals without meaning, and citizenship becomes a risk.

That is the future Mr. Okpebholo’s rhetoric gestures towards.

It is a future Nigeria must reject, firmly and immediately, before it becomes irreversible.