Omoyele Sowore Challenges Peter Obi Over 13-Month Doctors’ Strike In Anambra

With Omoyele Sowore taking aim at Peter Obi’s record as governor and questioning his handling of education and healthcare a political confrontation over Nigeria’s record of governance has dragged an old Anambra State controversy back into the spotlight. The remarks came during the heated political exchanges surrounding the 2026 Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference, where former public officials were challenged to defend their records in office.

Sowore’s criticism was blunt: he argued that Obi did not adequately subsidise education in Anambra and pointed to the prolonged industrial dispute involving government doctors. The claim has a documented historical basis, although the details deserve a little political fine-tuning before social media turns the entire story into one giant strike timetable.

SOWORE: THE 13-MONTH STRIKE THAT REFUSES TO RETIRE

Records show that doctors employed by the Anambra State Government called off a strike that had lasted about 13 months in February 2012. Contemporary reporting said the dispute centred on the implementation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, with the state government offering a salary increase while negotiations continued.

That makes the 13-month figure real, but the wider claim needs context. Available reporting specifically documents the doctors’ strike; it should not automatically be presented as though lecturers and doctors were one single professional group conducting the same 13-month strike. Obi himself later acknowledged that there had also been a strike in education during his administration and argued that his government was attempting to reform poorly functioning health and education institutions.

POLITICAL MEMORY MEETS THE SATIRICAL COURTROOM

And here comes the political comedy: in Nigeria, a government record can apparently spend more than a decade in retirement and still be summoned back to court whenever the next political argument begins. Sowore’s latest intervention effectively reopened the Anambra governance ledger, asking Nigerians to judge political figures not merely by their promises but by what happened when they actually controlled public institutions.

Sowore has made similar criticisms before. In 2022, he accused Obi of having “managed 13 months of workers’ strike” in Anambra and questioned the former governor’s record on schools, hospitals and roads. Obi subsequently offered his own explanation for the doctors’ dispute, saying his administration’s attempts to reform the health sector were part of the disagreement.

For now, the political thermometer is rising, and the Anambra record is once again becoming ammunition for competing narratives about competence, public spending and leadership. OGM News NG will continue to monitor the exchanges, the responses from Peter Obi’s camp and any fresh evidence that could add another chapter to this increasingly familiar political drama.