The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has accused the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Peter Obi, of deliberately lying about an incident at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Thursday, Keyamo stated: “That man was lying. He lies like a fish drinking water. He lies. He lies for fun.”
The minister was responding to claims by Obi that he was harassed at the airport on account of his political affiliation, describing the alleged clamping of his vehicle’s tyres as part of a persecution agenda by the Federal Government.
Keyamo rejected the narrative, insisting that CCTV footage from the domestic terminal on Saturday, 4 July 2026, showed a different sequence of events. According to the minister, Obi arrived at approximately 8:28 p.m. in a vehicle driven by a police officer. After dropping Obi and two other passengers, the driver parked in the designated drop-off zone, left the vehicle unattended, briefly returned to retrieve an item, and then left it unattended again. Airport security personnel subsequently clamped the tyres in the course of their duties.
Keyamo noted that no one was inside the vehicle at the time of the clamping and that airport staff had no way of knowing it belonged to Obi. When the driver later discovered the clamping, he contacted Obi, who spoke with the airport manager. The vehicle was released without payment of the prescribed ₦25,000 fine for wrongful parking.
The minister had earlier given Obi a one-week ultimatum to issue an unreserved public apology to airport workers, whom he accused of being unfairly portrayed as persecutors, and to voluntarily pay the outstanding fine. Keyamo maintained that no individual, regardless of political status, should be above the law.
He further criticised the decision of an opposition candidate to level public allegations of harassment without first allowing room for verification of the facts.