I Want Him To Expose Me In Court— Peter Obi Defends Lawsuit Against Kenneth Okonkwo

The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has defended his decision to sue his former campaign spokesman, Kenneth Okonkwo, saying he is eager for the actor-turned-politician to present all allegations against him in open court.

Obi spoke during a recent podcast interview with Arise TV broadcaster, Rufai Oseni. The clarification comes after Obi’s legal team instituted a defamation action against Okonkwo over a series of corruption allegations made against the former Anambra governor.

According to Obi, the court case became necessary after Okonkwo indicated that he possessed additional damaging information which he intended to disclose in the future.

“The issue of taking Kenneth Okonkwo to court wouldn’t have arisen if he had stopped at those allegations. But he claimed he still has more he would expose about me in the future,” Obi said.

“So I am very happy to take him to court so that he can expose me publicly, alongside other Nigerians. If any of them has any criminal allegations against me, they should bring it to court.”

The former Labour Party presidential candidate said public office seekers and political leaders should willingly subject themselves to scrutiny, arguing that Nigerians deserve to know the true character of those seeking to lead them.

“I think as a leader, this is time to avail ourselves for scrutiny by the public so that people can hear all the bad things about us,” he said.

“Because it is important that our future leaders must be who they say they are in terms of character, integrity, competence, qualifications and everything.”

Obi maintained that his lawsuit is not merely about the allegations already made by Okonkwo but about the latter's suggestion that he has more damaging revelations in reserve.

“So once he said that, I said wait a minute, we must go further. So people can hear,” Obi added.

The former governor also used the interview to dismiss reports of internal divisions within his political movement, maintaining that disagreements are a normal part of any organisation and had since been resolved.

“Let me assure you that whatever you think is happening in our party is nothing compared to what you see in other parties, and there's no issue,” he said.

“When you have an organisation, there are at times some disagreements or minor issues which we've been talked over, it's been resolved and everything, and that's it.”

Obi further challenged not only Okonkwo but any Nigerian with evidence of wrongdoing against him to come forward publicly.

“Not just Kenneth, everybody should say those things they know that are bad about me or I did that is wrong, because it's good for the system, it's good for the society,” he said.

“If you know that when we were in primary school, this man was cheating, or he didn't go to primary school, didn't go to secondary school, if you know this man has done something criminal somewhere, this is time to bring it out.”

According to him, Nigeria cannot afford another generation of leaders whose records are clouded by unanswered allegations.

“We must not allow the next set of our leaders to have a record that is doubtful,” Obi said.