Beginning 21 September, 2014 I commenced, on these pages, a trilogy of articles titled ‘Periscoping The Ideal APC Presidential candidate(1)’.
I compared and contrasted the serious contestants – all Northerners – as I did not really bother with then Imo state governor Rochas Okorocha, for the obvious reason of rotational presidency.
Those considered were General Muhammadu Buhari(rtd), a former Head of state, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, Dr Musa Kwankwaso, a former Kano state governor, and Sam Nda – Isaiah, the Publisher, Leadership Newspaper.
The exercise almost turned out a no- brainer as General Buhari, now late, very easily met every quality Nigeria needed to fight the two ferocious demons tearing at its innards – corruption and insecurity.
He, therefore, emerged my preferred candidate and went on to defeat the other candidates, hands down, at the primary election proper.
I have, unfortunately, since had cause to regret my
support and advocacy for General Buhari who, although remained incandescently incorruptible till the end, was so weak a leader that besides the very corrupt Villa Mafia which completely ringed him all round, far too many of his ministers, advisers etc, especially the Northerners among them, so rapaciously ruined the country that it is only now anti- corruption agencies are beginning to make them answer for their sins against all of us.
This short background is necessary as I begin an examination of who, between Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, should be the ADC Presidential candidate at the 2027 Presidential election.
Today is the turn of Peter Obi, the former Anambra State governor.
My job is made easy by the well known answer to the question: What is History?
Google puts it succinctly thus:”History is the systematic study and interpretation of the human past, encompassing events, people, societies, and changes over time, using evidence from sources like artifacts, documents, and stories to create narratives that explain how the past shapes the present and future. It’s a discipline that seeks to understand “what happened,” “when,” and “how,” in analysing political, social, economic, and cultural developments”.
Let us, therefore, now see the former Labour Party Presidential candidate – he has since, as usual, fled that party – in the eye of history, no matter what “stories” he will be concocting afresh on their new, borrowed political party – the ADC, regarding what he believes qualify him to be our next President.
If one of these is his totally unexpected huge vote tally of 6,101,533 which placed him third in the 2023 election, let me quickly inform Nigerans, ADC members in particular, that Obi has no such hopes in the 2027 election cycle if he is a candidate.
Lest we forget, that high vote was the result of his extreme exploitation of ethnic and religious differences at the election, especially the mistaken view, among a large proportion of Christians, that APC’s Moslem – Moslem ticket was particularly noxious.
While President Tinubu has since proved that completely false, I cannot see the likes of highly regarded Bishop Oyedepo and several other men of God, once again, put their pulpit at the service of Peter Obi, as happened in 2023.
Besides the above, the following will also work against his candidacy:
His limited national presence as his influence is largely limited to his ethnic Southeast which, with the tectonic changes that have taken place in the region since the last election, he can no longer win 90+ per cent of the votes. He will, at best, take a decent 60 per cent of the Southeast vote, edged on by the Obidients;
His being seen as a divisive figure will certainly negatively impact his ability to build broad coalitions just as
Lack of Experience, compared with both Tinubu and Atiku, will show Obi’s national-level experience as very limited.
Finally, the yet uncertain alliance dynamics being spearheaded by Baba Obasanjo, pairing Obi with Kwankwaso, will certainly face challenges in balancing regional and party interests.
His greatest advantage, which will come to nothing, is the massive, geo- spatial presence of Igbos in every part of the country but with only aggregate figures that will be very negligible.
Peter Obi, whose biggest claims are that he brings a new face and energy to Nigerian politics, as well as an appeal to young voters and those seeking change, is himself an old guard politician, having served two terms as Anambra State governor from March 2006 to November 2006, and then from February 2007 until March 2014 – a clear 20 years.
Just imagine a 20 year old adult!
For my job, therefore, I’ll do no more than press into service, a subtantial portion of my article of Sunday, 12 November, 2023 titled ‘Peter Obi: The Consumate Obscurantist’s Grand Delusions’ which reads, in part, as follows:
“Rather than just his claim of victory at the Presidential election, this will be an examination of the entirety of what Obi brought to an election he and Atiku so malignantlly poisoned.
That will mean psycho- analysing the man I describe here as an insuferable obscurantist.
Obscurantism, by the way, is the practice of deliberately
preventing the facts, or full details of something from becoming known.
And how does this apply to him?
Although both the PEPC and the Supreme court gave no moment to the fact that he was an 11th hour joiner of the Labour party,
meaning that contrary to INEC Guidelines, the courts gave no probative value to his name not being on the party’s membership register forwarded to the commission 30 days before its primaries, and thus implying that he flagrantly flouted one INEC stipulation, his entry, being so ethnic and stealthy, resulted in an instant internal crisis within the party which is still smouldering as you read this.
What is more important, however, are the lies which underpinned his emergence as the presidential candidate, when Gbajue- style – thanks to the Nobel Laureate – somebody stepped down for him, in the process, deprecatingly pronouncing himself inferior to Obi as far as leadership is concerned; he a normally show- boating individual, who never ceases to preach to Nigerians from the rooftops thus degrading himself, just so his Igbo brother could emerge the presidential candidate TWO DAYS after becoming a member of the party.
That too pales into insignificance when compared to the lies Obi told Nigerians as his reasons for eloping from the PDP.
Such were they that lies soon became the party’s modus operandi, whether it was Obi’s claim that he went to Egypt to “understudy that country’s education, power and finance sectors”, or several of his pastors, and bishops, regaling their hypnotised, congregants with details of dreams they never had as to how Obi had already won an election yet to be conducted – all to rapturous shouts of Halleluyah.
What of his sophistry, explaining how, and why, he claimed to have joined the Labour party and schemed his way to its presidential candidacy.
Hear him:
“I have chosen a route that I consider to be in line with our aspirations and my mantra of taking the country from consumption to production” – apparently, he momentarily forgot everything about NEXT, his importation giant.
“I invite all Nigerians to join me in taking back our country. Be assured that I’ll never let you down.”
Having gratuitously let the Ikemba down by dumping APGA for PDP, our man just has to promise not to let Igbos down again.
But pray! Was it in two days, after leaving PDP, he did all he is claiming here?
He continues: “Since I resigned from the PDP because of issues that are at variance with my persona and principles (such as serial decamping and investing state funds in family business?) I have consulted widely with various parties and personalities to ensure we do not complicate the route to our desired destination. For me, the process of achieving our goal is as fundamental as what one will do thereafter.”
Just listen to this practised obscurantist, trying to suck in, not just his Igbo brethren, but every Nigerian.
His placing third in the election proved, conclusively, that Nigerians were not deceived.
“Since I resigned”, Obi also said, making two days look like a millennium, “I have consulted widely with parties and personalities” – parties and personalities who were, understandably, nameless.
Here is a guy who had, only a few days earlier, submitted himself for screening by the PDP whose Vice Presidential candidate he was four years earlier.
“I thank all Nigerians, he continued, especially our youths who have joined me in the mission of taking back and reuniting Nigeria. This project is yours and for the future of your children.
I am just a facilitator” – certainly a precursor to President Obasanjo’s letter to Nigerian youths while soliciting support for Obi later. Now Baba is allegedly putting every effort into an Obi- Kwankwaso Presidential combo. Nigerians remember, all too well, the futility of all such Obasanjo’s past efforts.
I digress.
All that sweet nonsense was after Obi had run the most
” hateful, vile, divisive and polarising campaign that pitted Christians against Muslims and one ethnic group against the other in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria”, as Presidential Spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga would later perspicaciously put it.
All these should tell Nigerians who Peter Obi truly is.
Let us now see how the cookie crumbled, how Obi was outed in a situation akin to which Yoruba would describe as ‘bi iro ba lo logun odun, ooto ma ba lojo kan’, that is, even though a lie may subsist for 20 years, (but) truth will catch up with it one day.
Obi had probably forgotten all these lies when, several months later, the Executive Committee of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide visited former governor, Nyesom Wike, remonstrating with him over his non support for Igbo interests, especially, the Southeast quest for the Presidency, emphasising, in particular, his failure to support Peter Obi.
Trust Wike to have told the elders what would most probably have put ashes on their faces.
Wike let it be known to the eminent Igbo statesmen that Obi was actually bullied into leaving the PDP.
He had journeyed, excruciatingly, to Jigawa state, Wike said, intent on soliciting the support of Sule Lamido who took him to a village that took him more than four hours drive from Dukse to reach.
That was vintage Lamido who sees Fulani as the Aryan race and was eager to teach the Igbo upstart politician a lesson he would never forget.
That visit should remind us all of Obi’s promised one term all in the hope of playing servitude to the North, even if Igbos had wanted the presidency for ages.
Task master, per excellence himself, Lamido respects no single Southern politician besides former President Olusegun Obasanjo who appointed him External Affairs minister; a position for which he had nil qualification.
Obi, therefore, had to drive hours through the desert dust to hear Lamido
tell him that in his books, a Northerner must, willy nilly, succeed Buhari who was about completing his two terms.
That was when their boy fled PDP, not the sweet song his worshipful professors were scripting as reasons, putting Goebbels to shame.
It is all these, and the fact that his Igbo brethren believe Obi, hook, line and sinker even now, in fact, canonise him alive, that rankle.
It is why others watch in utter amazement as the otherwise brilliant and enterprising Igbo look like bewitched followers of Obi even when a redoubtable race like theirs does not have a paucity of brilliant, experienced and well connected men and women than can be thrown up for the ultimate Nigerian diadem.
It is, therefore, time Igbos tell Obi that he ill represents them, going round, and round, romancing ethnicity and religion as his route to the presidency: a choice sure to take Igbos nowhere.
It is the ADC I pity the more, as Atiku Abubakar, who we examine next Sunday, is not much better.
Net winner: Nigeria
