Aba crowd drowns out Kalu with “Obi” chants

A campaign rally meant to sell President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid in Aba, Abia State, took an unexpected turn on Saturday when the crowd refused to stop chanting the name of Peter Obi.

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, was on the podium urging residents to back Tinubu for a second term. He described the President as the best candidate and told the gathering that the South-East stood to gain from his administration.

“President Tinubu has remembered us. He has remembered the South-East. He has remembered Bende. The only way to say thank you is to vote him for a second time,” Kalu said.

The crowd had other ideas. Cries of “Obi! Obi! Obi!” rang out, a reference to Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).

Kalu switched to the Igbo language in an apparent bid to calm things down, but the chants went on.

The moment grew livelier when a woman believed to be an Obi supporter grabbed the microphone and shouted “Kererenke!” The crowd roared back with “Obi!” An organiser quickly took the microphone from her and asked her to leave the podium.

Kalu then tried to win back the audience by singing “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand,” an anthem popular among Tinubu supporters. The crowd answered with more chants of Obi’s name.

He tried again with a question about a planned university, asking: “You don’t want this university they want to build for you?” He later joked: “These people are not Item people.”

The scene underlined the challenge facing the APC as it works to build support for Tinubu in the South-East ahead of the 2027 presidential election.