Had Peter Obi of the Labour Party heeded the repeated warnings early in his campaign about the lack of structure, that is, grassroots organisations in all states-possibly in the 774 Local Government Areas in the country-his party would have been able to establish some foothold in a number of states over the past weekend, by winning a number of governorship races, at least in the states he won during the presidential election.
That, however, was not to be, because Obi’s conception of structure relied on a tripod of ethnic support, riding on Igbo version of awa lo kan (it is our turn); the youths, whom he deceived with alluring campaign slogans, such as “taking back our country” and transforming it “from consumption to production”, leading the youths to take him as a messiah; and the churches, riding on assumed backlash of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress, featuring Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, who eventually won the presidential election.
Of course, there were other factors that fueled Obi’s campaign and gave him the illusion of possible victory. One, he got the support of usual suspects in the Southwest (who hardly toe the same line as the majority of their people), namely, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Ayo Adebanjo. Two, sociocultural organizations in the South supported the LP candidate on the argument that an Igbo person should be president, as if such a person wouldn’t need sufficient votes across the country. Three, a number of jaundiced opinion polls projected Obi as winner. When these polls were referred to me for comments, I made three quick observations that, unlike US polls, the Nigerian polls projecting Obi were based on non-existent databases, inadequate sampling, and faulty methodology. Besides, a number of them provided only findings without data.
Unfortunately, Obi is still riding on the illusion of victory, even after it was clear he lost the election in which he came third and after the first runner-up, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, frankly stated that Obi could never have won the election. To Obi’s credit, however, he once made the rare admission that he was not challenging the outcome of the election but only the process, whatever he meant by that.
But his protégé in Lagos, Gbadebo Rhodes-FiveFour (oh, -Vivour, but allegedly not from the famous Rhodes family of Lagos), is not only challenging the process; he, too, is claiming he should have won the election in which he came a distant second, scoring 312,329, whereas Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC scored 762,134, which is more than double the LP vote. Moreover, Sanwo-Olu won every local government in the state, except Amuwo-Odofin, where the LP candidate was welcomed with an Igbo song during the campaign. On that occasion, a lady popped her head into the camera to tell viewers that their governor had arrived. Perhaps that event served as his own version of opinion poll, predicting his victory like that of the LP presidential candidate.
Undoubtedly, Obi’s victory in Lagos, in which he beat the presidential candidate of the APC in his home state, gave the LP governorship candidate the hope of winning the state. However, lack of political experience on the candidate’s part and the absence of a strong political structure in the state remained a major drawback. His supporters went to overdrive on their way to a victory they still had not earned. The candidate’s ethnic group, or is it his mother’s?, threatened to take over Lagos. They wanted to own it, since, as they claimed, it was a “No Man’s Land”. What audacity? It woke up the owners of the land and other right-thinking residents of the State of Excellence to rise up to Sanwo-Olu’s defense. I and many other columnists joined the chorus (see Thinking about Lagos future, The Nation, March 15, 2023). And many residents began to valorize Sanwo-Olu’s performance. Even some #EndSARS youths, who voted for Obi, switched from the LP candidate in Lagos to vote for Sanwo-Olu.
True, there were isolated cases of disturbances during the governorship election in Lagos, such cases were not limited to the state. Many other states reported similar cases. Nevertheless, the LP candidate in Lagos threw caution to the wind by raising all kinds of allegations, even against the electoral body. This is where Obi’s mentorship is a negative influence on the political process as these are the kinds of attack he has engineered. I wonder what country or state they seek to lead after denigrating same, by discrediting the electoral process and delegitimizing the winners, making Nigeria a laughing stock in the international press.
Nor should the LP candidate’s electoral loss in Lagos be viewed in isolation. In none of the eleven states Obi won in the presidential election has an LP candidate emerged as winner in the governorship race. It is largely because of lack of structure. Whatever they had by way of party executive in those states was concocted on the road to the presidential election campaign less than a year ago. The only exceptions are Alex Otti and Chijioke Edeoga in Abia and Enugu states, respectively. These are exceptional candidates, who had built their own structures over time. Otti has been running for the governorship in Abia since 2015, while Edeoga was once elected as a Local Government Chairman and a Member of the House of Representatives in Enugu. They only transferred their structures to the LP to assist Obi and, of course, themselves. If they eventually win, it will not be because of Obi but in spite of him.
Obi’s leadership is questionable in other respects. At no time did he caution his social media Obidients, who maligned other candidates during the campaigns; the pastors, who imposed his candidacy on their congregation; and the ethnic boasters in Lagos, knowing full well that they were inciting the indigenes of the land and other residents. He did not even say a word about the killings in the Southeast in the months leading up to the election. Well, perhaps he had a secret bond with them as all was quiet in order for him to rake in over 90 percent of the votes in the Southeast.
But all that is history now, although the negative image of Nigeria’s electoral process portrayed by Obi and his like in politics and the media will linger for some time to come. The good news is the elections are over now, and Nigeria has come out triumphant, like ogi funfun (white pap) out of a black pot.