My friend and colleague, Azu Ishiekwene, has just succumbed to the temptation of the growing fad that has been packaged in the form of anti-Peter Obi campaign. In his delivery in The Niche, an online newspaper, last Friday, Azu freely blurted out at Peter Obi. For Azu, Obi has no redeeming feature. He stood condemned through and through. With that assault on Obi’s personality, Azu has joined the burgeoning army of hate-mongers whose stock in trade is to package and sell Obi as a fading and failing presidential hopeful.
But unlike some of Obi’s critics who still give him a chance, regardless of their reservations about his method, Azu left no room for any saving grace. He does not believe that Obi has or ever had any chance of berthing at the presidency.
Let me admit that I have, in recent weeks, been buffeted to no end by a band of righteous indignants who are fiercely critical of Obi and his political journey towards 2027. Their overriding position is that Obi’s hold on the 2027 presidential race is tenuous. For them, Obi is, inexorably, trudging towards a blind alley. To save Obi from himself, these elements have taken it upon themselves to prescribe and proscribe a political method for him.
The bone of contention in all this is Obi’s membership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The sympathetic ones among them are worried that Obi has, in their estimation, committed political harakiri by taking his presidential ambition to the camp of buccaneers who will stop at nothing to ensure that he does not get the party’s presidential ticket. Their argument is that Obi should have remained in the Labour Party (LP), the platform that launched him into political stardom, and build and nurture the party for future electoral contests.
I concede to those who think along this line the right to hold any opinion on any issue, including Peter Obi’s presidential quest. It is a basic right which they are entitled to. But in canvassing their positions, they must recognize the fact that there are as many shades of opinion on any subject matter as there are interlocutors. What rankles, however, is to imagine that one’s position on any issue is inviolable.
But should Obi have remained in LP? Those who think so are being somewhat naive. They are turning a blind eye to the fact that the Bola Tinubu presidency was, and has remained, the instigator and finisher of the crisis within that party. The plot was to ensure that the party, for as long as Obi remained its prime mover, remains in crisis to the extent that it won’t be able to field candidates for the forthcoming elections. Should Obi have sat tight and allowed himself to be decimated politically using the subterfuge of the crisis within the LP? No, he shouldn’t have. The LP crisis was contrived, just like that of PDP. The presidency is using them as baits. It would have been unwise for Obi to fall for that naked ploy.
We will not engage in any boring tirade here as some people have chosen to do. But it is important to properly situate the Peter Obi phenomenon in order to allow for a more dispassionate approach to matters that have to do with his politics. Obi and some of those who work closely with him know that he did not join ADC just to be crowned the party’s presidential candidate. He knows that there is no free ticket waiting to be grabbed. He understands the fact that he has to play the right politics and wait for its reward. This he is doing. While the jostling is going on, those who love Nigeria, wherever they may be, are lending a helping hand to ADC. They want the leadership of the party to understand the fact that Nigeria is in dire need of rescue. ADC as the most formidable political platform is being looked up to for this rescue mission. That is one end of the stick. The other, and a more challenging one is: who, among the party’s top presidential contenders can give the party the best showing in the election? Peter Obi, if truth must be told, stands the best chance here.
Obi is, certainly, not the only opposition politician in the country. But has anybody stopped to ask why everybody is talking about him? Why are they not talking about Atiku Abubakar, for instance? Why is everybody focused on one man? The answer is simple. Obi is the most consequential politician in Nigeria today. He is the politician with the magic wand. He is that politician whose public appearance is as volcanic as the release of geothermal energies.
His presence in any public gathering simply compels attention. Respect for, or the fear of, Peter Obi is the beginning of political wisdom in Nigeria. Nobody can wish this away. Tinubu knows it. That is why he is hunting Obi like a prey. He knows that giving Obi a breathing space could spoil the broth for him.
It is, therefore, no surprise that he has to recruit his long-standing ally, Justice Ayo Salami, to do a hatchet job for him. Justice Salami who as president of the Court of Appeal was corruptly influenced by Tinubu to annul governorship elections in states where he (Tinubu) had interest is the man Azu alluded to in his remarks. That was off the mark. But then, what purpose does it serve in 2026 for Justice Salami to weigh in on a matter that happened four years ago? That was deliberate act of de-marketing. The idea is to give Obi a bad name. But only the unwary will be taken in by the antic.
Even those who do not like Obi admit that he has a cult following. His support base is almost impregnable. He is a man you can not afford to ignore.
Having taken Nigeria by storm in 2023, some people now feel that they can impose a pattern on his politics. They want to teach him how to be a politician. Some say they do not like his pacifist approach to politics. They prefer the make-or-break variant. They want to remake Obi. But they forget that it is this same approach of his that has taken him this far. Man is not an instantaneous creature. But some people want Obi to be one. They want to be able to read him like a book. Any form of complexity in him unsettles them. That is why we are experiencing all the hysteria about him and his politics.
Now, some people are working hard to draw him out over the ongoing defections. They say he is too complacent. They say he is just sitting down while everybody is defecting to Tinubu’s camp. But they are not asking the right questions. Why are people defecting? Is what is going on normal? Has anybody noticed that everything in Nigeria is being turned upside down because Tinubu wants to return as President?
Why is this anomaly not engaging the attention of Obi’s critics? Is he to blame for Tinubu’s transgressions? Those who want to worry about the defections can go ahead and do so. But Obi and those who believe in him are saying just one thing: Give us free, fair and transparent elections and you will see that the defections will amount to nothing in the long run.
Credit: The Sun