POLITICS NIGERIA reports that Kperogi said Northerners are resentful of the Labour Party presidential candidate’s oblique references to the poverty in the North “because he is an “outsider” who is in addition resented for asking the “Church” to “take back” its “country” and for characterizing the 2023 election as a “religious war” between Muslims and Christians”.
This newspaper recalls that in a series of tweets on April 18, Obi said, among other things, that he was “committed to lifting people out of poverty and I remain committed to transforming Nigeria starting from the North to every part of the nation.” This rankled many northerners, particularly northern Muslims, who understood the tweet as a backhanded, stereotypical vilification of their region.