“Peter Obi is a moving train, not like [the] Abuja-Kaduna train. It is hard to blow up this train; the whole of Nigeria is in it. Obi is the need of the hour, a symbol of hope.” –Dr. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed
Win or not, the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, will go down in Nigeria’s history of campaigns as one who came on the scene and refashioned electioneering. Under his out-of-the-box campaigns ahead of the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi suddenly and unwittingly became the centre of attraction. Virtually everybody, including his opponents, is directly and or indirectly campaigning for him without their knowing it.
All the social media activists, both those for and against, have discovered that any political statement from them without Obi mentioned in it will not trend. Since Obi became the Labour Party flag bearer, he has been trending more than other political personalities nationwide. The three other leading candidates, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, have all quickly and unexpectedly discovered that their campaign master plan must have to factor in Obi who, from all indications, is dictating the pace with his issue-driven campaigns.
In the past, in our political world, there has always been a heedless search for imperfections and fault finding on our opponents as a campaign strategy instead of focusing on issues. The initial dismissal of Obi as an aberration, as a social media wave that will fizzle out when the going gets tough, is becoming a bad analysis. And such myopic views are even becoming a catalyst for the OBIdient political family. When it was said that Obi was just a social media tiger little did they know that such a view rather than demoralise would provoke the diehard supporters of the Labour Party?
Nigerian youths and workers who are obviously and unmistakably LP’s hardline backers are enraged that the elite didn’t believe in their political importance and capabilities, hence writing them off as mushrooms, a non-formidable bloc that lacks the so-called structure.Ex-governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano who obviously has been overrating his political influence because of his ethnic and locally-driven Kwankwasiyya movement had thought that it would catapult him into the much desired third force nationally ahead of 2023. He has since learnt that Kwankwasiyya lacks what it takes to measure up as a national movement.
When Obi came with his “take back your country” message to Nigerian youths and the working class, it hit their head immediately and they took the project from him and ran. All the other coinage such as “OBIdient” and “We no dey give shi-shi” are the people’s terms to market their choice and admired candidate. Suddenly, Kwankwaso who was beginning to identify the difference between a national movement and a local group trying to fight the inferiority complex created by the development became abusive.
He thought he could pigeonhole the OBIdient movement by abusing the LP candidate and the Igbo whom he claimed is at the bottom of the nation’s political ladder. He did not stop there, he asserted that Northerners would not vote for Obi. Instead of saying what he can do as President to save a sinking ship called Nigeria, which is what Obi’s Labour Party has been heralding to the populace to win him applause. Kwankwaso was arrogantly talking of qualifications and experience that he thought Obi is not having. His utterances full of sentiments and abuse did not portray him as a doctorate holder which he flaunted or one with the huge experience he was claiming.
Unknown to Kwankwaso when Obi appeared in 2003 in Anambra State as a governorship candidate, he had no political experience and was written off by the so-called experienced politicians of Kwankwaso’s ilk. Obi did not only win that election but also left a legacy in governance unequalled by any Nigerian state, including Kano where Kwankwaso had dominion. Perhaps, going by the failed experience of the past, the current ongoing political leadership recruitment process in the country is more interested in antecedents and verifiable records than experience. Experience without capacity and verifiable stories to show have not taken this country anywhere. In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari came with experience as an army general and as an icon of anti-corruption, but we can all see where we have arrived with him.
At the end of the day, Kwankwaso’s media interview that was intended to shore up himself and lower the OBIdient family turned out otherwise.Kwankwaso’s needless outbursts against Obi and Ndigbo should be seen and understood from the point of a frustrated man who dreamed to emerge as the third force in the political space only to be drowned by a real people-driven movement.
Even the social media activists, who have been shining for calling out President Buhari over his numerous faults to the admiration of the populace and who are recalcitrant about the OBIdient project, have discovered how not to swim against the tide. They have also found that they can hardly trend unless they have Obi mentioned in all tweets and posts. For this reason, there is a daily struggle to squeeze in anything OBIdient in whatever they are saying or doing for relevance and attention.
Senator Dino Melaye, for instance, also realising that he cannot trend without talking about Obi, exposed the contradictions in him. He began by highlighting all the Nigeria remedies solutions to which are possessed by only the LP candidate. But he said Peter Obi should wait, meaning that the solutions to the problems should also tarry. Also, the loquacious Chief Servant and ex-governor Babangida Ailyu of Niger State spoke in a similar vein of Obi being the best presidential candidate but said he should queue up until 2030. Everybody–prophets, soothsayers, activists, politicians–whose sole agenda is to be noticed, has seen the OBIdient family as the fastest channel.
So far, all kinds of lies are being fabricated against Obi in a desperate bid to give a dog an ugly name to hang it.
Recently, finding nothing incriminating and damaging against the LP candidate, detractors searched and thought they had found the killer punch, linking him to the outlawed self-determination group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. They dug out a photo of a young Biafran youth and claimed he is Obi’s son at the forefront of the let-Biafra-go agitation in Europe. When the lies were exposed, they brought in the use of the Labour Party logo in an Islamic praying mat with the sole motive of placing Obi and his party at loggerheads with the Northern Muslims.
Again, that was unmasked and they claimed he Obi isolated Northerners to wear identity cards when he governed Anambra. Peter Obi again disarmed them, saying that could not have been possible because in his eight years in office, he worked with six Commissioners of Police, all northerners. In those years, his Aide-de-camp (ADC) hailed from Kano.
Unknown to the LP candidate’s detractors, what they were doing, knocking him from all corners to bring him down or redirect his focus, was energising and increasing his resolve to partner with Nigerian youths and the working class to take back Nigeria as their very own. What all the barrage of attacks on Obi is showing to the teeming LP supporters is that current Nigerian leaders do not want them anywhere nearer the political power corridor until their children grow up to take over the mantle from the fathers. Therefore, such a selfish attitude, rather than dampen their morale, has significantly helped to catalyse it.When the Enugu fiery Catholic priest, the Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, said he was cursing Obi for stinginess, it ended up popularising him as Nigeria of today, more than ever before, requires a frugal leader who would guard public funds jealously to deploy them appropriately and not to have Santa Claus (Father Christmas) show with people’s money.
But in truth, it’s empirical that all those who set out to undermine Obi, have unintentionally been campaigning for him, some even in trouble. The Nigerian people who have been at the receiving end of successive misrule in Nigeria are not listening to such distractions. Instead, they are turning all negatives thrown at Obi into positives. Having been convinced by Obi’s messages, and having examined his antecedents and found him a verifiable leader, they are now the driving force in the mission.Unlike 2015 when some political cosmetics beautified Gen Muhammadu Buhari and sold him to gullible Nigerians as the change agent who would rescue the country.
But since make-ups are hardly durable, it did not take long before the silhouette gave way to the real image, and here we are. In Obi’s case, the people are the ones pushing their products in the market because they trust their quality. Therefore, my take so far, watching the ongoing political jigsaw in the country ahead of 2023, is that those who are not disposing themselves to the OBIdient project and who have taken much time trying to run the LP flag bearer down are missing the point and taking us away from the issues which should drive this election. From all indications, what they are doing now is counterproductive, needless, and antithetical to good reasoning.
God, help Nigeria.
