By Abuchi Obiora
Last week’s discourse veered off from my promise to round up the discussion on “Peter Obi and Labour party: Reinventing Nigeria With 2023 Election”, to discuss another national issue that needed an urgent attention. In this discourse, we will continue from where we stopped penultimate week.
Part One of this work took an overview of the early history of Nigeria, her formation as a political entity, the personalities involved in that formation and the certification/common vote of approval for that formation by the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria who agreed in Lancaster House Conference of 1957 and 1958 that their country, soon to be granted independence by the British government, will anchor her new government on the tenets of true regional federalism with equal stakes being held in the union by the constituent units.
That first part of the discourse also examined and found out why things have fallen apart in Nigeria where the constituent units of the multiple ethnic nationalities are either seeking for a restructure of the sociopolitical landscape through a re-writing of the Constitution or an outright self-rule.
This part two which is the concluding segment of the discourse articulates how a Peter Obi’s presidency achieved through the auspices of the popular Labour Party with a national spread across the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and driven by Nigerian youths both within the country and in the Diaspora, may be used to restore the trust and love of Nigerians of different ethnic nationalities for their country. This week’s work will also find out why and how the completion of the process of restoring the trust and love of Nigerians of different ethnic nationalities for their country by a Peter Obi’s presidency will reinvent as well as reinvigorate Nigeria, getting her prepared to attain her natural position (because of her vast natural and manpower resources) as the greatest country on earth.
The recurring question of underdevelopment of Nigeria as a result of corruption and ineptitude of previous governments have made Nigerians to question the competence of their present political class in addressing the numerous problems of the country. From this background arose the need for a new brand of politicians and leaders that must emanate from a popular, people-oriented political party with the support of Nigerian youths who happen to be the worst hit as a result of the dwindling fortunes of the country. The Labour Party provided this leverage of a popular people-oriented political party to Nigerian youths.
Lacking in role models to set the pace for Nigerian youths, most of whom have ‘joined them, because they cannot beat them’ in the game of social vices and corrupt enrichment, the politicians have made the youths to suddenly become interested in Nigeria’s politics when Mr. Peter Obi and Senator (Dr.) Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed emerged as the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate respectively, of the Labour Party. In these two men, Nigerian youths discovered role models for their future – something that none of the major candidates in the presidential race and so many other older politicians offered them.
A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, once told a group of youths who visited him that one of the first lessons he learnt in his military career is not to reinforce failure in any military operation, no matter who is involved. This implies that a failure must be allowed and if need be, aided to go down. With this mindset, Nigerian youths learnt that it is high time they dispensed of all the politicians of the closing era of poverty and penury, who have caused the ruination of Nigeria.
Nigerian youths also understood that the only way to achieve this goal is to move the national politics and politicking away from the traditional method of primordial sentiments of ethnicity, language, tribe and religion to an issue-based dialogue in choosing their next President in 2023. This is a paradigm shift that is sure to turn things around for Nigeria and Nigerians and the symbol of this paradigm shift is Mr. Peter Obi.
A very simple man with disarming humility, visibly transparent and straightforward, Mr. Peter Obi is setting a record as the most interrogated presidential candidate ever to appear in Nigerian political scene. With Mr. Peter Obi’s emergence as a Presidential candidate, the bar of responsive and interactive governance as regards the expectation of Nigerians from their government, has just been raised.
By telling Nigerians to hire him and Dr. Datti Baba–Ahmed as the most qualified applicants for the offices of the President and Vice Presidency, respectively, Mr. Peter Obi has made Nigerians know that power belongs to the people. It has never been like this before. It is most likely that henceforth, business will not be as usual for future and aspiring Nigerian Presidents because they will be ready to face the people’s searchlight on them as everything about their present and past activities must be revealed.
Not only has the emergence of Mr. Peter Obi as the Presidential candidate of Labour Party for 2023 elections become a paradigm shift in the revelation of the people as the true custodians of power, it has also unmasked the grave weakness of the status quo as well as demystify those Nigerian politicians hitherto regarded as demigods. Additionally and most importantly, the existence of a dangerous clique of educated and elitist cult of political hatchet men who, through setting up inept and weak governments, use their pens, intellect and international contacts to fritter away the common patrimony of Nigerians, has been revealed.
These international political conmen and crooks who live in extreme luxury and waste utilize their fingers and closeness to the governments they brought into power to spin away Nigerian’s wealth to their private holdings in the same manner political thugs and street urchins use their fingers and their guns to do the biddings of their paymaster politicians. To these elite hatchet men who spiritedly attack the candidacy of Mr. Peter Obi with any slightest excuse, it is a matter of retaining their wealth, but to the deprived and depraved Nigerians, it is a matter of survival of the country and her more than 200 million inhabitants. This is why some of the country’s politicians known to have looted the national treasury directly or indirectly at one time or the other, are working assiduously to stop Nigerians to take over their country because they understand that it will be ‘game over’ for them with a Mr. Peter Obi’s presidency. Beclouded by their selfishness and greed, these hired guns who continuously seek for flimsy excuses to vilify the OBIDATTI presidential ticket have been blinded to observe the public opprobrium trailing their meretricious outbursts. Having no modicum of respect for themselves, they very unwisely fail to decipher public opinion about them as they surreptitiously expose their obliquity through needless oblique aimed at castigating and running down the OBIDIENT Family.
The emergence of Mr. Peter Obi in the 2023 Presidential race has revealed some discreet facts about the inadequacies of the socio-political configuration of the status quo. Being the most scrutinized and interrogated Presidential candidate that has ever come out of Nigeria, Mr. Peter Obi has had to field questions from most of the interest groups across Nigeria, including the Northern part of the country. One of these consultations was the chat Mr. Peter Obi held with the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), a political and cultural association of leaders in Northern Nigeria. The ACF, based in Kaduna which had considerable influence in the Northern Nigeria political scene, was founded in 2000 and since then have succeeded in promoting successful candidates for political offices across Northern Nigeria.
In another chat which Mr. Peter Obi held in Northern Nigeria with Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a socio-political organization of Northern Nigerian elites with Prof. Ango Abdullahi as the National Chairman, the NEF Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed (the elder brother of the Vice-Presidential flag bearer for Labour Party, Senator (Dr.) Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed) had also posed some questions to Mr. Peter Obi including a recurring question that always was asked in almost all the meetings Mr. Peter Obi held with Northern elites and politicians.
Meanwhile, the NEF, through its respected Chairman Prof. Ango Abdullahi, (Professor of Agriculture and the fifth Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria), had said in September, 2022 that the NEF will not support a Presidential candidate in 2023 based on ethnicity or religion. He said, “We will not support a candidate that fails to convince that he will radically improve the quality of governance and the integrity of leaders”. Among other things, the Emeritus Professor further said that, “we have paid a high price in conflicts around religion in the North and we do not need to do more……”. The Emeritus Professor continued, “Our insecurity and collapsing economy do not discriminate between Christians and Muslims…..” and that, “we bear scars from governance by one we substantially voted into power twice”. He concluded by saying that “Northern votes will make a major impact in the 2023 elections as well, but they will be cast by people who are wiser and more discerning”.
The recurring question in all the chats that Mr. Peter Obi had with politicians of Northern Nigeria woven around the fear and apprehension of the Northern Nigerian political class, when an Igbo man becomes the President of the Federal Republic. This fear and apprehension reveals one important thing. That revelation is that there could be the likelihood that the Northern Political class is remotely aware that the South Eastern Nigeria, specifically the Igbos, have been marginalized and shortchanged in the devolution of the office of the President of the Federal Republic across the regions of Nigeria, and therefore could take revenge once they take up the office.
In another development, Prof. Kperogi, another Northern elite writing from the Diaspora, who had not before considered Mr. Peter Obi of being capable of winning the 2023 Presidential contest, narrated his phone call conversation with a much respected, informed and well-educated uncle of his and the revelation from his uncle that Mr. Peter Obi is taking Northern Nigeria by the storm. Prof. Kperogi concluded that Mr. Peter Obi could win the Presidential election and sought for more interrogation of the man by Northern Nigerian political elites in the manner that I earlier narrated.
Thank God the interrogation which have revealed Mr. Peter Obi as the most competent, capable, credible and committed man for the office of the President also revealed him as the most patriotic and pan-Nigerian politician in the mold of Mustapha Kemal (Atartuk of Turkey: 1881 – 10th November, 1938), and Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) of Singapore (16th September 1923 – 23rd March, 2015).
In his answers to his interrogators, Mr. Peter Obi had always, after taking time to address his audience, insisted that those who are afraid of his presidency will be sure to be the greatest beneficiaries of his presidency. I believe him for two reasons.
- Northern Nigeria is one of the poorest regions in both Nigeria and around the world in spite of the fact that Nigeria has been ruled most times by politicians of Northern Nigerian extraction. This may be implicative of lack of sound managerial ability on the part of politicians of Northern Nigerian extraction.
- In spite of the fact that Nigeria has most times been ruled by the Northern Nigerian politicians, the South Eastern region of Nigeria from where Peter Obi derives his origin happens to be the region with the least population of poor people in Nigeria. This could mean that they are better managers of resources and creators of wealth.
Behaving as if he is the anointed man for the office of the President in 2023, (voices from the grapevine say that the powers-that-be has worked out a plan to compensate him for having been technically outsmarted by the incumbent President in the immediate past presidential election, when the man was thought to have won the election); and in contrast to Mr. Peter Obi’s wide consultation within the professional groups, trade unions, traditional rulers, the organized Labour and the Nigeria masses, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP Presidential candidate gives Nigerians of Northern extraction the impression that he will be the best thing that ever happened to them when they vote for him in the 2023 Presidential election.
By saying so, he breached the Peace Accord signed by all the Presidential candidates and fell foul of the subsisting common opinion of both the ACF and the NEF not to support Presidential candidates who seek people’s vote through whipping up primordial sentiments of ethnicity and religion. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had said, “What the average Northerner need is somebody who is from the North and also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country…… this is what the Northerner needs, he doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate. I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of Northern origin”.
Responding to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s statements, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Director, Media and Publicity of Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organization said “ the statement of People Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to the effect that Northerners don’t need a Yoruba or Igbo President is the worst expression of ethnocentric opportunism ever uttered by a former Nigerian Vice President…… it confirms the argument that Atiku has feasted on such base, primordial sentiments of tribe and religion, using the masses as the ladder to attain political offices since 1989 without any dividends to show for representing them”.
This could be true, if we recall that while berating the internet activities in mobilization by the OBIDATTI family, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had said that 90% of Northern voters do not have access to smart phones necessary for online communications. In his rash defense of his diminishing popularity across the Northern regions, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar indicted himself by revealing that 90% of the people he had been representing since 1989 in elective offices are so poor that they cannot afford smart phones in an era of great leaps and bounds in communication.
Talking about elective representation in the emerging politics of the geopolitical regions of Northern Nigeria, I must use this opportunity to say something about the Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Observing carefully, I found out that Alhaji Kwankwaso, a technocrat, and Architect and a politician, is the current most beautiful bride of the Nigerian Presidential contest for 2023. For ‘Madugu’ (alias kwankwasiya), going solo in the February, 25th 2023 election may not be as beneficial as teaming up with either Atiku Abubakar or Mr. Peter Obi. These two presidential candidates are the people I can see with differing possibilities of attaining victory in the election. But the decision is his to make though I observe that with his decision, he must have chosen to identify with either an expiring political force, or team up with an emerging indomitable political movement where he will undoubtedly become the strongest politician and political kingmaker in Northern Nigeria. If he decided to take the second decision, the budding political influence of Senator (Dr.) Datti Baba-Ahmed in the North will be an additional advantage for him since both of them had once worked together.
The next Presidential candidate to mention here as a result of the incumbency factor which ordinarily is supposed to give him some clear advantages is Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC. Using the incumbency factor, he would have been a strong force to contend with in the Presidential race but for the setback he suffered as a result of the APC’s Muslim/Muslim ticket. I had once written in the Kaleidoscope Opinion Column that the APC’s choice of Senator Kashim Shettima, (a former Governor of Bornu State, a known sympathizer of the Boko Haram Jihadists and a vehement opponent of Restructure) as the party’s Vice Presidential candidate was a burden deliberately imposed on Senator Tinubu by the APC hierarchy to curb his chances of winning the Presidential election in 2023. This was even revealed earlier by the Party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu during the tirade trailing Senator Tinubu’s ‘Emi lo kan’ pronouncement. The APC National Chairman had promised that they will ‘punish’ Tinubu for daring to say that he made it possible for President Buhari to attain his present office after trying and failing three times. But the straw that broke the carmel’s back and nailed all chances of Tinubu’s victory in the coming election is his numerous gaffs in all his campaign outings. These gaffs are suspected to be the result of an unstable mind which has severally been referred in the media as dementia.
Why is Mr. Peter Obi’s Presidency necessary for Nigeria now? It is ironical that Nigerians entrust their businesses to competent people to manage but entrust the country, the operating environment of their businesses which determines the success or failure of their businesses, to incompetent people to manage. But a new guideline has been given to Nigerians with Mr. Peter Obi as the author of the guideline for hiring their leaders. Today, Nigerians are elated and much enthralled by the fact that Mr. Peter Obi presents himself and Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed as applicants seeking the opportunity to manage Nigeria into wealth and prosperity.
Do people who mess up their businesses not turn-over those businesses to Receiver/Managers to turnaround? In a previous work in the Kaleidoscope Opinion Column, I had insisted that Nigeria needs a Receiver/Manager- type of government to save her from ultimate insolvency and total bankruptcy. Fortunately for Nigerians, Mr. Peter Obi and Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed have humbly presented themselves as Receiver/Managers to turnaround the fortunes of the country and save Nigeria from the recklessness of her past leaders.
As a Receiver/Manager, the OBIDATTI presidency must be allowed to address those constitutional issues which had unsettled the peace of many ethnic nationalities in Nigeria so much that they decided to work for self-rule. As a Receiver/Manager, the OBIDATII presidency must be allowed to reinvent Nigeria in the manner a knocked-out automobile is reinvented through a thorough mechanical overhaul or an outright replacement of the automobile engine.
Can Nigeria’s political elites allow Mr. Peter Obi to exercise the overriding power of a Receiver/Manager? The apprehension and palpable fear expressed through the questions that were asked Mr. Peter Obi during his many interrogation sessions by the Northern Nigeria political elites suggest that the present Nigerian political elites both from Northern and Southern Nigeria need to reset their minds on how the national cake can be baked and not who shares the greatest portions of the national cake. Mr. Peter Obi captures this process in what has become a national mantra, “FROM CONSUMPTION TO PRODUCTION”.
Obviously in reference to this, Mr. Peter Obi highlighted the issue of resetting the minds of all stakeholders in the Nigerian project including the political class while addressing Nigerian Architects in Calabar, Cross River State, during their annual General Meeting, (AGM) on Friday, November 25th, 2022. Delivering a Paper during that AGM with the general theme of “Housing and Design Excellence for National Development”, Mr. Peter Obi pointed out what he called ‘the critical requirements of effective and result-oriented leadership’. He calls and identifies these critical requirements as the 4 ‘C’s. He enumerated them as: Competence, Capacity, Credibility and Commitment. But he warned that for competence, capacity, credibility and commitment to render effective and result-oriented leadership, “……there must be elite consensus on critical national interest questions”. Methinks, this is a direct challenge to the rank of the political elites, including some presidential candidates who believe that business must go on as usual in Nigeria.
In summary, I identify the answers to this “critical national interest questions” as love, patriotism and loyalty to Nigeria, our dear country. Upon the foundation built on this tripod must all of us, including the known political elites (and their ‘Chop-I-Chop’ followers) who are sure to miss the presidency after the 2023 election find a common ground to reinvent a strong, prosperous and united Nigeria.
ABUCHI OBIORA
abuchiobiora@gmail.com
For: Global Upfront Newspapers
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