Nigerian politician Peter Obi said he would run for president again in January after winning his party’s nomination, setting up another contest between incumbent Bola Tinubu \u200band a divided opposition.<\/p>\n
Obi was declared winner of the Nigeria Democratic Congress \u200cprimary on Sunday, less than a month after\u00a0quitting an alliance\u00a0that had tried to set up a single opposition challenger.<\/p>\n
The acceptance from Obi – who came third in the last election after galvanizing \u200byoung voters – hit hopes among some opposition backers that he might return to \u200bthe coalition.<\/p>\n
It prepares the ground for a re-run of 2023’s three-way contest \u2060that is likely to test whether public anger over\u00a0rising living costs\u00a0and insecurity \u200bcan translate into votes against Tinubu, or whether the anti-government vote will once again be \u200bsplit.<\/p>\n
“We must address insecurity with resolve and urgency, for no nation can thrive while its citizens live in trepidation,” Obi said in a statement late on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Nigeria is grappling with overlapping security crises \u200bthat stretch far beyond the jihadist insurgency in the northeast, where Boko Haram and \u200bIslamic State West Africa Province have waged a conflict for more than 15 years.<\/p>\n
In the northwest, heavily \u200carmed \u2060gangs known locally as bandits carry out mass kidnappings for ransom and raids on villages and schools, while north-central states have also seen recurring violence linked to disputes over land and grazing routes.<\/p>\n
Voters will also be focused on Tinubu’s economic reforms, including the \u200bremoval of fuel and \u200belectricity subsidies and ending \u2060currency controls which have won over investors even as Nigerians watch their incomes and savings erode.<\/p>\n
Higher global oil prices linked to \u200bthe Iran conflict have added to the pressure, with Nigeria experiencing \u200bsome of \u2060the steepest fuel price increases among major African economies.<\/p>\n
Tinubu on Friday\u00a0defended his reforms, saying they had stabilised the country and revived investor confidence, despite the squeeze on households.<\/p>\n
Former Vice President \u2060Atiku \u200bAbubakar, runner-up in the last election, last week won \u200bthe ticket to represent the African Democratic Congress party, in what will be his seventh presidential bid.<\/p>\n
Leaders of \u200bother smaller parties are also expected to run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerian politician Peter Obi said he would run for president again in January after winning his party’s nomination, setting up another contest between incumbent Bola Tinubu \u200band a divided opposition. Obi was declared winner of the Nigeria Democratic Congress \u200cprimary on Sunday, less than a month after\u00a0quitting an alliance\u00a0that had tried to set up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[1236,1433,175,5188,1391],"class_list":["post-21021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-atiku-abubakar","tag-bola-ahmed-tinubu","tag-nigeria","tag-nigeria-democratic-congress","tag-peter-obi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21023,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021\/revisions\/21023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}