Rights advocate and lawyer Chidi Anselm Odinkalu has raised fresh concerns over political rhetoric in Edo State ahead of the 2027 general elections, drawing attention to Governor Monday Okpebholo’s pledge to deliver 2.5 million votes to President Bola Tinubu and the controversial “AK-47 fire” remark made by the state Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Jarrett Tenebe.
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Writing on X under the hashtag #JustSoYouKnow, Odinkalu compared the APC’s 2.5 million-vote target with the number of registered voters in Edo State and questioned what he described as the silence of the Nigeria Police Force, the State Security Service, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, The Kukah Centre and the National Peace Accord over the rhetoric.
Odinkalu wrote:
“#JustSoYouKnow: According to @inecnigeria, Edo State has 2,866,263 registered voters. The state governor, @m_akpakomiza, has guaranteed @officialABAT 2.5 million of that or 87.23% of the registered voters in the state in #NigeriaDecides2027. According to @OfficialAPCNg in Edo State, anyone who opposes this will be at the receiving end of the contents of the belly of an #AK47. For the record, @TunjiDisu1 of @PoliceNG, @OfficialDSSNG, @KukahBishop of @KukahCentre & #PeaceAccord remain #Schtum.”
His intervention came against the backdrop of repeated statements by Okpebholo that the APC intends to deliver 2.5 million votes to Tinubu in Edo during the 2027 presidential election. The governor has previously said the target would be driven by his administration’s projects and the party’s grassroots mobilisation.
Odinkalu’s numerical point is that such a target would amount to an unusually large proportion of the entire registered electorate in the state, before accounting for voter turnout or votes cast for other candidates.
There is, however, a slight discrepancy in the voter figure contained in his X post. While Odinkalu cited 2,866,263 registered voters, a state-by-state breakdown published from INEC’s October 6 briefing lists Edo at 2,865,263, out of a nationwide register of 103,428,715. On the latter figure, 2.5 million represents about 87.25 per cent of all registered voters in Edo, meaning his wider point that the pledge represents roughly 87 per cent of the state’s register remains substantially the same.
The other part of Odinkalu’s post concerned remarks attributed to Edo APC Chairman Jarrett Tenebe.
Tenebe, while speaking to party supporters about the APC’s plan to deliver 2.5 million votes to Tinubu, referred first to “Holy Ghost” power and a General Purpose Machine Gun before stating that anyone who wanted to stand in the party’s way of securing the targeted votes should face “AK-47 fire.” Video reports of the speech have been independently published by several media organisations.
Tenebe was quoted as saying:
“So everybody who refuses, who wants to stand in our way, for us not to have those votes that we intend to give to Mr President, AK-47 fire.”
The comment generated criticism over its implications for political participation and voter confidence as campaigning intensifies ahead of the 2027 elections.
Odinkalu’s criticism went beyond Tenebe and the Edo APC. By tagging Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu, the Nigeria Police Force, the SSS, Bishop Kukah, The Kukah Centre and the Peace Accord, he was effectively questioning why, in his view, there had been no sufficiently direct public response to the particular “AK-47” statement.
Disu has served as Inspector-General of Police since February 2026.
Odinkalu has also pursued the same criticism more extensively in a commentary on the National Peace Committee, arguing that the effectiveness of the Peace Accord should be measured by how its custodians respond when political actors make statements capable of intimidating voters.
His use of the word “schtum” in the X post means remaining silent or saying nothing.
The National Peace Committee, however, has issued a broader warning against political violence, intimidation and inflammatory rhetoric ahead of the elections. In a statement jointly signed by its Chairman, former Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and Kukah, the committee disclosed that its monitoring mechanism recorded 60 election-related violations within one month, including intimidation, threats, political violence and inflammatory statements.
It urged the police and other security agencies to conduct prompt and impartial investigations and reminded political parties that the Peace Accord was “a solemn public commitment, not a ceremonial declaration.”
That statement was a general intervention on election-related misconduct. Odinkalu’s X post, by contrast, was specifically questioning the response to Tenebe’s Edo remarks.
The controversy comes as INEC prepares for the 2027 general elections with a national register of 103,428,715 voters following the completion of its Continuous Voter Registration exercise and biometric cleanup.
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