admin
Introduction
There have been mixed reactions since the Nigerian Senate passed the State Police bill last week.
On 11 June, the House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment bill seeking to establish state police across the federation. The Senate also passed the bill last Wednesday.
Some citizens and politicians have strongly criticised the bill, which is coming at a time when the general election is at hand. However, the Nigerian government and some civil organisations also believe that this is the right step to deal decisively with insecurity which has ravaged the country in the last 15 years.
On his part, the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, welcomed the bill but asked the federal government to suspend implementation of the State Police Bill until after the 2027 general election.
According to the former Anambra governor, Obi expressed concern that, if implemented, the current administration of President Bola Tinubu could use the state police against opposition politicians in the forthcoming 2027 election.
Claim
On Sunday, many Nigerians, including the supporters of President Tinubu, posted a video clip of Obi addressing many police officers at what appears to be a protest venue.
In the video, Obi was seen apologising to the officers for “bringing them out”.
“Mothers are in the hospital without knowing how to pay their bills, and this is what should concern us, not bringing you people out from your office whenever there is a party issue,” Obi lamented in the clip.
While disclosing his good intentions about Nigeria, Obi promised that “we won’t bring you people (police officers) out again; the next time we will do that will be about your welfare ”.
“We appreciate what you are doing for the country; that is why we came out today. We will take it up from today,” Obi said in the video.
One of the president’s supporters, an X user, @idofoi, published the video of Obi speaking to police officers and claimed that it was a recent attempt by the politician to incite them against the authorities.
The post accompanying the clip reads in part, “In a deeply reckless move, Obi is actively sowing seeds of division within the ranks of the Nigeria Police Force. This is a dangerous game that the @PoliceNG authorities must take seriously and investigate.
“First, he vehemently opposed the State Police Bill. Then, almost immediately, he is seen addressing policemen directly about their duties. How does one reconcile these two positions without creating confusion and division in the force?
“Worse still, he chose to engage officers while they were actively on duty, leaving the very citizens they are meant to protect exposed and vulnerable. This is not leadership; it is grandstanding at the expense of public safety,” the X user claimed.
The post has since gone viral and has attracted wide criticism of Obi.
Another Tinubu supporter, @Pressman204∅ also made a similar claim.
“He (Obi) vehemently opposed the State Police Bill, warning it could be weaponised to suppress political rivals. Yet now, he is addressing serving police officers directly, encouraging them to question their duties. This is not leadership; it is reckless incitement,” the X wrote on 28 June.
FACTWATCH Nigeria has observed that the clip wa has spread across Facebook and Instagram pages on Sunday.
Also, a famous television broadcaster, Rufai Oseni, shared the video on his X page without any caption.
Verification
First, some key frames from the video were subjected to Google Image Reverse Search, and the results led us to the clip of Obi addressing the police officers, which was posted on YouTube, the X platform and on a Facebook page between the end of October and early November 2024.
On 31 October 2034, @UptownofLagos, a strong follower of Obi, posted this video on his X page and wrote, “BREAKING: Obi holds men & women of Nigeria police spell bound with motivations.
A Facebook page also published the video that same day here.
However, a longer clip was also posted on YouTube on 1 November of that year, with a caption that reads, “Peter Obi addresses Nigerian Police, urges them to treat Nigerians with respect & get in return”.
The video posted by Lyon Mack TV garnered over 17k views with 292 likes on YouTube.
In this video posted by the YouTube channel, Obi started by commending the police officers and then moved on to talk about how families can disagree and make recommendations, adding that it is what he and others had come to do there that day.
A voice-over in the YouTube video stated that he could not identify the location where the video emerged.
From the longer clip on YouTube, this fact checker noted some important keywords from Obi when he talked about family disagreement and coming to the office to make party reconciliations.
As the video was first traced to 2024, FACTWATCH Nigeria searched the keywords from the longer clip of Obi addressing the police officers on Google and found out that the video emerged when members of the Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) picketed the headquarters of the Labour Party (LP) in Abuja in June 2024.
This was after the re-election of then National Chairperson of the LP, Julius Abure and the National Working Committee which was nullified by the NLC two months back.
A further search by this fact checker led to a video of Obi posted on the Arise News YouTube channel on 26 June, with the headline: “PETER OBI INTERVENES IN LP-NLC DISPUTE.”
We observed that Obis is wearing the same outfit in the Arise News video as in the one where he is speaking to the police officers.
In the video posted by Arise News on YouTube in June 2024, Obi played down the party’s internal crises, saying they were all working for a united front.
“Before we learnt that you people were outside, I already told them (NWC) that my first three assignments are reconciliation, reconciliation, and reconciliation. It is what I do every day, even in our families. When we quarrel with our wives and children, we reconcile.
“So these people here (pointing at the demonstrators) are members of the family who we must reconcile with. We will sit around a table and decide the future of our party. I am ready for a reconciliation meeting any day you choose Mr. Chairman.
Obi also spoke on the reconciliation of Abure and the Lamidi Apapa faction.”Let me tell you one thing: their reconciliation is all about our party, and I can assure you that everyone must reconcile with each other.
See a similar video here.
After watching the two videos of Obi addressing Nigerian police officers and him speaking to the press over NLC protests at LP headquarters in 2024, it can be confirmed that the two clips are from the same place and day in 2024.
No news organisation in Nigeria reported Obi’s address to police officers at that time as it is not newsworthy. However, the protest itself was covered and reported.
Verdict
The video of Obi speaking to the police officers, alongside the claim that it was after his recent comments over the establishment of State Police, is MISLEADING.
Deep findings by FACTWATCH Nigeria showed that the clip was from June 2024 during the NLC protest at the LP headquarters.
Credit: FACTWATCH Nigeria
