Obi’s “Tell Them No” Advice to the Diaspora Is Clueless, Callous and Contradicted by the Facts - Omole.
At a town hall with supporters in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 18 October, arrogant Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), told Nigerians abroad that people back home were begging them for money, and that the proper response was "Tell them no!" He went further, suggesting that those relatives should instead be pressured to vote for him.
We read the remarks twice and watched the video several times, hoping we had misunderstood them. We had not. The statement shows no feel for how Nigerian families work, no grasp of how the Nigerian economy works, and no understanding of how the diaspora thinks. It deserves a plain answer, and we give it on three fronts.
Prince Ade Omole, Renewed Hope Advocate and Diaspora leader, reacted, “Mr Obi has looked at one of the most ordinary acts of love Nigerians perform and called it begging. Nobody in London, Atlanta or Toronto sends money home because a politician failed them. They send it because a mother, a brother or a child is waiting. Telling them to say ‘no’ is not politics. It is contempt.”
Anyone who has ever been the first child, or the one who "went abroad", knows that the money leaving a London or Atlanta account at month-end is not begging. It is school fees, a mother's hospital bill, a brother's rent, a cousin's exam registration. To call it begging insults the senders and the receivers in one breath. This is a Nigerian tradition of looking after one's own, older than any political party, and no candidate has the right to order Nigerians to ration it.
The economics are also no better than the manners. The Diaspora sent home a record $20.93 billion in 2024, according to World Bank data reported by Nairametrics, roughly four times foreign direct investment and nearly 37 per cent of all remittances to sub-Saharan Africa. Those dollars feed households and also feed the foreign exchange system that keeps the naira steady and reserves growing. The Central Bank reported that remittances through licensed operators rose by more than 61 per cent in the first ten months of 2024, to $4.22 billion, and the CBN Governor credited reforms and returning confidence. Mr Obi now asks Nigerians abroad to close that tap. He would starve households and weaken the currency in a single stroke, all to score a political point.
Omole added, “In our culture you do not count what you send home. The first son pays the school fees, the daughter in Manchester pays the hospital bill, and nobody calls it charity because it is family. That is how Nigerian households have survived challenging times for generations. A politician who wants to ration that love is asking us to be less than who we are.”
A widow in Onitsha does not cause bad governance by asking her son in Canada for help, and the son does not cure bad governance by refusing. Refusing family is not a vote. It is a punishment, and it falls on the same Nigerians at home whose votes Mr Obi says he wants. This is also the politician who, on the 2023 campaign trail in Ilorin, urged voters to collect whatever politicians offered them because it was their own money, as Daily Trust reported. In 2023, the advice was to take the money. In 2026, the advice is to refuse your own family.
Now to the record. Mr Obi wants his listeners to believe that Nigeria is beyond help. The people who scrutinise economies for a living have reached a different view.
Let us start with the Bretton Woods institutions. In February, World Bank Managing Director of Operations Anna Bjerde told President Tinubu in Abuja that Nigeria has become a frequent example of reform delivery in her conversations around the world, and called the two-year results commendable. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has publicly commended Nigeria's decisive reform actions. At the Bangkok annual meetings last week, World Bank President Ajay Banga acknowledged the progress, and a Finance Ministry statement records that private capital inflows have grown from about $300 million in 2023 to nearly $6 billion this year.
The ratings agencies agree with them. Fitch and Moody's upgraded Nigeria in 2025. S&P followed in May 2026, lifting the rating to B, reportedly its first upgrade of Nigeria in 14 years, and citing the exchange rate liberalisation and a stronger external position.
Domestic numbers have also pointed in the same direction. Headline inflation fell to 14.63 per cent in September, from 20.98 per cent a year earlier and its lowest since October 2020. The Central Bank cut its policy rate by 350 basis points to 23 per cent in September. External reserves stood above $58 billion on 12 October, the highest since 2008, and the Finance Minister said the tax-to-GDP ratio rose from about 7 per cent to 12.5 per cent.
On tax, the four laws signed in June 2025 took effect in January 2026. Income up to ₦800,000 a year is now tax-free, up from ₦300,000, and minimum-wage earners pay no income tax at all.
Workers and pensioners have not been left out. The minimum wage is ₦70,000 a month, more than double the ₦30,000 it replaced. The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate has cleared ₦39.6 billion of inherited pension arrears, paid the arrears on the ₦32,000 pension increment, and the President has approved health insurance cover for Defined Benefit Scheme pensioners.
On local government autonomy, the Federal Government, through the Attorney-General, went to the Supreme Court, which on 11 July 2024 affirmed the financial autonomy of all 774 local government councils. The work of implementing that ruling continues.
On regional development, the administration has added development commissions for the North West, South East, South West and North Central to the North East and Niger Delta bodies it inherited, and created a Ministry of Regional Development in October 2024 to supervise them. The 2025 budget proposed more than ₦2.4 trillion for five commissions, and on 14 September the North Central commission opened a summit in Abuja on a 20-year plan for its zone.
And on infrastructure, Section I of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, 47 kilometres, is complete, with Section II well advanced. The 1,068-kilometre Sokoto–Badagry Superhighway is under construction on several sections, and work on the Akwanga–Jos–Bauchi–Gombe–Biu–Maiduguri corridor was flagged off this year.
The President has been honest that these reforms were painful at first. They were also necessary, and the figures above show where they are leading.
“The President never told Nigerians the road would be easy. He told them it would be worth it. Three years on, inflation is falling, the naira has steadied, and the rating agencies are upgrading Nigeria. There is more to do on prices and jobs, and we will not pretend otherwise. But you do not fix a house by telling its owners to give up on it.” Omole affirmed.
Finally, the diaspora itself. Mr Obi spoke as though Nigerians abroad were waiting to be told what to do with their money and their votes. They are not. The Renewed Hope Global Tour took the administration's message across four continents and eight cities, among them New York, London, Dubai, Zurich and Toronto, and its 50-page report was presented to the Federal Government in Abuja in August. Diaspora groups have publicly pledged to mobilise for the President's re-election. A Strategic Global Diaspora Conference brought more than 600 participants together from Africa, the United Kingdom, the Americas, Europe and Australia to organise support for the Renewed Hope Agenda. In the Oxford–Metro Analytics National Trust Poll, which closed on 7 September, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, finished ahead of Mr Obi and led in more than 20 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
“The Nigerian diaspora is politically conscious, economically influential and perfectly capable of making its own decisions. The Renewed Hope Global Tour took the President’s message to four continents and eight cities, and Nigerians abroad answered with conviction, not instruction. They want a country that works, they can see what is being built, and they will organise to keep it going.” Omole said.
“You cannot build a nation by asking its citizens to abandon one another. You build a nation by strengthening families, rewarding sacrifice, creating opportunities and restoring confidence in the future. The diaspora's money belongs to the people who earned it, and the decision to support their families is theirs alone. Peter Obi is entitled to seek Nigerians' votes, but he has no right to turn family solidarity into a political weapon.” Omole concluded.
The diaspora will keep sending money home to the people it loves, and it will keep backing the President whose reforms are making that money count for more. We call on Mr Obi to withdraw his remark and to apologise to the Nigerians at home he described as beggars.
Hon. Tosin Olayinka, LL.B (Hons), B.L., LL.M (London)
Programme Director,
Renewed Hope Global
WhatsApp: +234 704 117 6329.
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