{"id":66280,"date":"2025-05-22T08:33:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=66280"},"modified":"2025-05-22T08:33:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:33:05","slug":"obi-breaks-silence-slams-alleged-secret-tinubu-meeting-and-debt-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/22\/obi-breaks-silence-slams-alleged-secret-tinubu-meeting-and-debt-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Obi Breaks Silence, Slams Alleged Secret Tinubu Meeting and Debt Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Labour Party\u2019s presidential candidate and former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, has dismissed as falsehood the reports alleging that he secretly met with President Bola Tinubu in Rome over a \u20a6225 billion Fidelity Bank debt crisis.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Obi described the allegations as malicious and unfounded, stating that his recent trip to Rome was solely spiritual and unrelated to any political or financial dealings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is obvious that the biggest business for blackmailers now is talking about Peter Obi from every negative perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cEven my solemn spiritual trip to Rome has been twisted into yet another blackmail campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obi clarified that his only encounter with Tinubu was during the inauguration Mass of Pope Leo XIV at Saint Peter\u2019s Basilica, where he briefly exchanged greetings with dignitaries, including the president.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that he was in Rome on May 9 to pay respects at the lying in state of Pope Francis, after which he travelled to London before returning to Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting to claims linking him as owner of Fidelity Bank, Obi firmly denied any ownership, acknowledging only that he once served on the bank\u2019s board among other institutions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFidelity has over 500,000 shareholders. None holds a controlling stake.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These lies only aim to harm innocent Nigerians and stir unwarranted panic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Obi condemned the smear campaign, describing its perpetrators as merchants of falsehood and pain.<\/p>\n<p>He ended his response with a prayer for his critics and reaffirmed his unwavering optimism: \u201cA new Nigeria is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola Labour Party\u2019s presidential candidate and former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, has dismissed as falsehood the reports alleging that he secretly met with President Bola Tinubu in Rome over a \u20a6225 billion Fidelity Bank debt crisis. In a statement, Obi described the allegations as malicious and unfounded, stating that his recent trip [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":66281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-66280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66282,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66280\/revisions\/66282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}