BY: Abdulrasheed Akere
Claim:
Social media users are trending a claim that Peter Obi said, “My son is gay. This is the 21st century. Why can’t we allow gay people to marry each other? We have to show them love.”
Image of the viral claim
Verdict:
FALSE! Peter Obi did not say his son is gay, the quote is fabricated.
Full Text:
A TikTok user, identified as Ola-Ola made a post with a picture of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) with an inscription that reads thus: “My son is gay. This is 21st century why can’t we allow gay people marry each other. We have to show them love.”
The post has generated 514 likes, 74 comments, 63 favorites, and 208 reshares. The claim also appeared on Instagram and Facebook as posted by different users.
Verification:
When FactCheckAfrica subjected the claim to search engines, it was found out that it had earlier surfaced online in July, 2026. It was traced to an X user, @Bayo_Bilisi who has up to 12.3k followers.
However, the claim was disclaimed and factchecked by one of Nigerian reputable media platforms who found it to be false.
The claim was said to be from Peter Obi’s interview with a media personality, Chude Jideonwo, whose team has debunked it, when FactCheckAfrica also reviewed the interview it found no part of the interview where such statement was made.
While perusing the official X handle of Peter Obi, no iota of information was found to prove the claim right.
Conclusion:
The claim that Peter Obi said, “My son is gay. This is the 21st century. Why can’t we allow gay people to marry each other? We have to show them love,” is FALSE. There is no credible evidence that Peter Obi made the statement. A review of the interview reportedly referenced as the source of the quote found no such remark, while the team of media personality Chude Jideonwo also debunked the claim. The statement appears to be a fabricated quote circulated on social media and should not be attributed to Peter Obi.
