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By Henry Akubuiro
Four years ago, the Labour Party (LP) was on the ballot for the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections, but nobody was expecting it to mount any serious challenge in any state, and it didn’t. The spoils were shared by the major political parties the APC and the PDP — in most parts.
However, the story has changed within the last two weeks with the results of the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, which created upsets across the state of the federation and saw the Labour Party taking scores of seats in the House of Assembly and the Senate.
Though LP made inroads in the South-West, especially Lagos, and the North-Central, it was in the South-East and South-South regions that the Labour Party made the greatest impact,
In Enugu State, the Labour Party won an astonishing six Senate seats and 34 House of Representatives slots to become the dominant party heading to today’s election. Hitherto, Enugu had been under PDP control since 1999.
Surprisingly, not only the Labour Party governorship candidate in Enugu State, Chijioke Edoga, is riding under the Obidient movement to curry votes; other candidates from other parties have found a way of exploiting it to bolster their chances in today’s polls.
For instance, the governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Enugu, Frank Nweje Jr., was unfazed that his party fielded Peter Umeadi as its candidate for the February 25 presidential election.
At the recent 48th annual synod of the Methodist Church of Nigeria in Enugu, days before the presidential election took place, the former information minister had endorsed Obi as the best candidate for Nigeria’s top job.
He followed it up with a tweet after it was confirmed that Obi won a landslide in Enugu State, thanking residents of Enugu for voting him: “Thank you, team. I am elated that our people rose to the occasion to cast their votes for Peter Obi.”
Shockingly, he added: “I am also excited to see that the old structures are being torn down in the state. This is what democracy is about. You have shown that, indeed, the people are the structure.”
Before now, the PDP had produced all the state governors for 24 years following the return of democracy after a fairly long military intervention in governance.
Surprisingly, the PDP presidential candidate is also jumping on the Peter Obi bandwagon with the slogan of “Obidient4Mbah.”
This might be unconnected with the fact that the incumbent PDP governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, failed in his senatorial bid to a Labour Party candidate, having lost to the Peter Obi tsunami on February 25. Also, the governorship candidate of the APC in the state, Uche Nnaji has been pandering to the Obidient movement. In one of his messages to the people, he made a comparative analogy between himself and the Labour Party presidential aspirant, Peter Obi, as a way of winning the hearts of the Obidients.
Besides, the PDP has been spotted in churches, markets and streets and other public places trying to win voters’ hearts. In the past, any candidate on the PDP governorship ticket and most people vying for positions in the state House of Assembly were taken for granted to win.
Abia State presents a similar scenario to Enugu on the strength of the Labour Party’s string showing in the last presidential election where it won a majority of the parliamentary seats at the national level, leaving the crumbs for the other parties.
Ahead of the nationwide Thursday deadline for campaigning for today’s governorship and state assemblies election, a group of purported Obi supporters advised the Labour candidate to shelve his visit to Abia State to avoid breakdown of law and other.
In a statement signed by Mazi Chetachi Ikpe, who claimed to be the Coordinator, Peter Obi Grassroots Movement (POGM), Abia State, and Hon. Chief Ndubueze Obiakwata, Chairman, Obidient Across Parties Alliance (OAPA), said Obi’s visit posed a security threat.
The statement read: “We are all members of various political parties, who all worked for the LP presidential candidate’s victory at the polls in the state and we are of the firm belief that Obi has played his part by coming severally to Abia to campaign for LP even though we (Abia Obidients) mobilised virtually all citizens of the state to vote for him at the just concluded presidential election.
“We therefore urge him to ignore those pushing him to come back to the state for LP campaigns, as it could worsen the already tense security situation in the state, ahead of Saturday’s governorship/ House of Assembly elections.”
Lagos State and Rivers State are two states where the state governors have been working hard to win the hearts of the non-indigenes and the youths to support their parties in the governorship election. While Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is running for a second term, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has been rallying support for his preferred candidate flying his party’s governorship ticket.
In Lagos, from a relative outsider months ago, the Labour Party has become a major contender for the coveted seat, largely because of the strong showing of Peter Obi in the last presidential election where he defeated the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at his backyard.
To appease voters who might be putting their tents on rival candidates, Governor Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has been visiting strategic locations in a populist move to swing votes. Aside visiting the recently gutted Akere Market in Olodi Apapa, set ablaze by purported political thugs, he has visited the victims of the Train/BRT bus collision, and a popular shopping mall, among others. He also donated N100 million to the traders. These humane moves and exhibition of humility seem to have brought him into the consciousness of many Lagosians once again.
Likewise, the tough talking Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who broke his silence last week after the presidential election, which he was accused of rigging by the Obidients, hosted a delegation of Ohanaeze Ndigbo at Government House, Port Harcourt, during which he explained that there was no agreement reached by southern governors to support the Labour candidate but only a “southern candidate”.
At a separate meeting with traders at Ikoku Market in Port Harcourt, he directly appealed to them to support the PDP governorship candidate in the state. He also donated acres of land to the traders, while also declaring Peter Obi as the “hero” of the February 25 presidential election. This has been interpreted as a way of appealing to the Obidients movement.
The APC in Rivers State is also working hard to win the support of the Obidients and the Igbo voters in particular, who constitute a large chunk of the voters in the state and many of whom identify with the Obidient movement.
A former Rivers State Governor and Minister of Transport, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, has also been moving around, appeasing people to vote for his candidate.
In Anambra State, Governor Soludo has been working very hard to ensure his party, APGA, wins majority seats in the state house of assembly. There is no governorship election in Anambra State today, but voters will be trooping out en masse to choose their representatives.
The Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo has been begging the people to vote for the House of Assembly candidates of his party “if they want the developmental strides of Mr Governor to continue.
“You cannot be talking of development and at the same time talking of electing opposition politicians into the House of Assembly, it is not done. It is deceit.
“Anambra people supported Obi during the presidential election, and besides, Soludo refused to interfere as the people trooped out to vote for Obi, and that was even before Soludo made the environment conducive for people to come out and vote.
In Delta State, the Obidients are also giving other parties sleepless nights. It will be recalled that, though the state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, ran in the presidential election as Atiku Abubakar’s PDP running mate, his party was swept away by Peter Obi.
Though a traditional PDP state, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s daughter, Marilyn Okowa-Daramola, has reached out to the Obidients for votes. Her move is similar to that of the PDP candidate for House of Assembly, IKA South East constituency, where Governor Okowa hailed from, who took to the social media video to beg the Obidients to vote for her.
The Obidient movement has elicited comparison with the Arab Spring of the 2010s that witnessed socio-political revolts across the Arab world, the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the Black Lives Matter movement in America seeking for a change in the status quo. The group cuts across ethnic groups and religious biases.
But some have stated that the results of the governorship and House of Assembly election might not be as that of the Presidential poll, as Peter Obi, its biggest name, isn’t on the ballot.
