If Peter Obi wins

The cocktail of unimaginative charges and spiel by the motley set of entrenched   interests, united in greed, envy and parochialism, against Peter Obi’s bid for President this year continues to mutate in a very interesting way. That is understandable.

Obi’s star has remained remarkably effulgent since he embraced the Labour Party and emerged its presidential candidate for the 2023 election. While his surge in popular reckoning had initially been received with dismissive interest, the resilience of his campaign, strengthened by an unwavering popular acceptance across the country, has become a pill some entrenched political interests cannot swallow without choking, politically.

For quite a number of the old foxes in the Nigerian political farm, the forceful emergence of Peter Obi as a presidential candidate was initially received as just a whiff of refreshing aroma that would evaporate in a short while. He was expected to make his rounds and leave the arena for those at home with the shenanigans of Nigerian politics. These are folks who thrive in muddy waters. Obi dug in.

After two eventful tenures as governor, Obi cannot be a novice in politics in Nigeria. He has managed, however, to remains something of an outsider, even as he has a good idea of what transpires inside. The former Anambra State governor has always cut a classical image of someone ever ready to commit class suicide. This is his appealing power. Alas, it is also a major reason why many among the political class are uncomfortable with the prospect of his becoming President. The primary worry about a possible Obi presidency is the fear that his government will remove the feeding bottle from those sucking Nigeria to exhaustion.

Without doubt, Obi, on the platform of the Labour Party, constitutes a serious challenge to the ancien regime to a level not witnessed in Nigerian politics in recent memory. With a substantially unblemished personal profile, unimpeached record in office as governor and a rather uncommon restraint in primitive accumulation, characteristics that none of his prime competitors can claim, even under influence, Obi presents a challenge in many dimensions to the political class. He certainly, is no saint. Relative to his main co-contestants on the podium, however, he almost looks like one.

The challenge his opponents have in identifying a viable angle from which to diminish him makes their line of attack ever mutable. This difficulty obviously accounts for attacks on him coming in bursts and squirts. When, therefore, someone gratuitously jumped up to declare that investments Obi made over a decade back as governor were worth nothing today, it was easy to read frustration.

The flimsiness of the cases made by Obi’s opponents, right from the commencement of his presidential bid on the platform of the Labour Party, has been as interesting as they often amount to a no-case submission against him. First, his popular acceptance was dismissed as an Internet infatuation, a crush by the youth that was bound to wane in a short time. For good measure, it was further said with glee that statistics has shown that the youth hardly register to vote, not to talk of coming out to vote. A political castle built on the shoulders of the youth was as good as that built on shifty sands, so the Obi support was expected to collapse in no time.

In due course, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commenced registration of voters nationwide. What happened? The said youths came out in unprecedented numbers across the country. Even as operational delays and INEC registration timeline eventually accounted for numerous youths not succeeding to register as they sought to, the number that was registered remains remarkable. Obviously, the youths have a new resolve.

There was also effort to play the ethnicity game. Obi was first said to be no more than an Igbo candidate. When the campaigns commenced, it turned out that he had as much drawing power all over the country as he had in the South East. Why Peter Obi would be an Igbo candidate but Bola Tinubu would not, essentially, be a Yoruba candidate or Atiku Abubakar a Fulani candidate remains one of those pathetic shows of idiotic mindsets in Nigeria’s public space.

Next came the issue of ‘structure’. Labour Party was said not to have any governor or legislator of any kind. Therefore, Obi’s LP was presented as not having any ‘structure’ to win elections. In this context, ‘structure’ is simply euphemism for the machinery for manipulating elections.

Unknown to those who were clutching this straw of ‘structure’ and its efficacy in elections, INEC has dealt a serious blow to ‘structure’ through its deployment robust technology in elections. Recent elections provide evidence. In any case, pervasive hunger and deprivation across the land have erected a new structure that may yet be more devastating against the conniving old structure. So far, from all indications, the Peter Obi-Datti Baba Ahmed ticket has continued to be propelled by the new structure. Gradually, the issue of Obi not having a structure was discountenanced.

The latest line of flimsy pitch by opponents of the Obi-Datti ticket is perhaps the most ridiculous. The pitch is anchored on a notion that on one hand acknowledges a reality but seeks in the same breadth to counter that reality. As this new argument goes, yes, Obi can win the presidential election, but it does not make sense to support him to win because, if he wins, the National Assembly will be dominated by opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A President Peter Obi will, therefore, not be able to carry through the reform policies he is promising, as he will be dealing with a hostile National Assembly.

This puerile line of argument was reported to have even reared its stunted head at recent meetings of the Group of 5 want-away PDP governors. If indeed the report is correct, then the governors are confused. If they cannot choose whether to be counted as part of a decadent old order or among the promise of a new order, then they have problem.

The argument that Obi could win but that he should be stopped from winning because he will have a hostile National Assembly at hand is an attempt to mask dishonesty as goodwill. The pitch is a disingenuous attempt to use a hypothetical prospect in the future as basis for making a present decision. This is worse than necromancy. It should be discountenanced for its dubiousness.

If Peter Obi wins the 2023 presidential election, it will be because the majority of Nigerians see in him the decency, the absence of insatiable greed for material acquisition and a promise of a better future for Nigeria. It will not be because he is a part of an APC/PDP arrangement. On the contrary, it will be because his ticket is not a part of the pillaging old order. Let Peter Obi and his compatibly unencumbered vice, Datti Baba Ahmed, win first. Tomorrow will take care of itself. This argument on why Obi should not be voted in is once more bereft of depth and sincerity.