Dr Chris Anyokwu

By Chris Anyokwu

Nigeria at the present moment may be likened to a pregnant elephant which has come to term and is about to be delivered of her child.  Speaking of which, it is difficult to resist the temptation not to recall the Half-Child, a bundle of joy/sorrow, in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests, a deeply tragic play commemorating Nigeria’s independence in 1960.  Remarkably, over sixty years on, we are still waiting with bated breath in front of the Labour/Delivery Room, hoping this time to catch the happy yell of a bundle of joy.  Still retaining our metaphor, it is fair to say that Nigeria is at present being midwifed by three or four presidential nominees, all of them keen to deliver a New Nigeria.  It is equally fair to say that the presidential nominees of the two state parties have been around awhile longer than Peter Obi, in particular, who happens to dominate national consciousness as we speak.  Is he such a flash-in-the pan?  An unknown quantity?  Why are Nigerians hard put to it to let go of their fond pieties of ethnicism, tribalism or, as it is more popularly hyphenated, ethno-religious biases and primordial inclinations and, for a change, take a chance on Peter Obi?  What baggage does he carry which effectively renders his candidacy unsellable in a pan-Nigerian electoral emporium?  Or, could we say the animus and bone-deep resentment expressed towards him from some quarters are simply knee-jerk reactions from old political rivals?

Professor Wole Soyinka

Nigeria’s media-traditional and social-have been awash with a deluge of anti-Peter Obi smear-campaigns, Pull-Him-Down syndrome, mindless much-raking and ceaseless calumniation.  Some even go as far as using GPS technology to try to zero in on his London house just to rubbish his claims regarding his offshore property.  His private life is not spared either as people have a thing or two to say in damaging terms about his children.  Proxies and hounds of his opponents have already rifle through the Pandora and Panama Papers with fine – toothed comb intent on scooping on a scintilla of stain on his person.  You hear tall tales of Peter Obi’s “secret businesses”; of his bribing party delegates with humongous sums to chinch the presidential ticket of the Labour Party (LP).  You also get the impression that so-called netizens are hard at work on their laptops and digital devices fact-checking ALL claims Obi makes in churches, Men’s  Fellowship confabulations, on TV (e.g. Channels TV and Arise TV), radio stations (Classic 97.3 FM) and oral interviews granted in public places such as airports extempore.  These paid analysts and commentators love to no end to put a spin on the alleged reason(s) why Peter Obi as Governor of Anambra State was impeached.  They go on to drill holes on his verifiable records on infrastructure development, state finances, his anti-corruption stance as well as his thriftiness and philanthropy.  All in all, there seems to be a desperate attempt to tar him with the same scabrous brush with which his co-contestants are being tarred.  Issues such as date of birth, schools attended and when, certificates obtained, forged, missing or stolen and track-records of previous careers are put on the front-burner.  You are again reminded of late Chief Lamidi Adedibu’s famous quip to the effect that “If you do not want to be told who dated your mother before your father married her, then don’t enter politics”.  Unsurprisingly, therefore, Peter Obi is now permanently under the microscope, his entire existence being interrogated with such cruel explicitness.  But we do not have to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it.  The desperation and panic, if not paranoia in the opposition camp is quite understandable as all the auguries are contrary.  Cheerleaders are losing their voices over-panegyrising their principals while their attack-dogs, most e-thugs, are out-doing one another antagonising Peter Obi.  Indeed, politics is war by other means.  Just the other day, Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State was seen on social media, for all intents and purposes, letting the cat out of the bag.  He essentially sounded the alarm on The Peter Obi Revolution or the “Obimania” as some love to characterise it cynically.  Obaseki ripped the veil of pretended insouciance off the timorous faces of the establishment honchos and henchmen, thereby exposing a shell-shocked crew of geriatric time-servers bleeding white a people bludgeoned into benumbed submission through decades of accustomed disenfranchisement and pauperisation.  Bob Marley sings “You may fool some people sometimes, you can’t fool all the people all the time”.  Now, the entrenched bastions of power are sensing some volcanic activity; the ancient tectonic plates are shifting and a tsunami may well be readying to overwhelm the land.  Even the so-called “Owners of Nigeria” are not so cocksure any longer of their omnipotence and invincibility.  The rumoured “Third Force” is here, live and direct and Peter Obi is leading the charge.

Peter Obi

Peter Gregory Obi, CON, born 19^th July, 1961, is a Nigerian businessmen, banker and politician who served as the Governor of Anambra State, three separate times from 2006 to 2014 (First time: 17 March 2006 – 2 November 2006; second time: 9 February, 2007 – 29 May 2007 and third time: 14 June 2007 – March 17, 2014).  Formerly, a member of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) (2002 – 2014), Obi later left the party to join the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) between 2014 – 2022.  In May, 2022, he became the Labour Party nominee for president of Nigeria in the 2023 presidential election.  Peter Obi attended the Christ the King College, Onitsha, University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he bagged a B.A. (Honours) in Philosophy.  He also attended Lagos Business School, Harvard Business School, London School of Economics, Columbia Business School and the Institute for Management Development.  By the early 2000s, Peter Obi was the Chairmen of Fidelity Bank before leaving the position to enter politics.  He was elected Governor after a three-year legal battle to reclaim his electoral mandate.  He was declared winner in 2006 and assumed office in March 2006.  He was impeached that November but that impeachment was over-turned and he returned to office in February, 2007.  Obi was again removed from office when a new election was held in April 2007 but the judiciary intervened again and ruled in his favour.  He consequently was able to complete a full four-year term.  In 2010 he won re-election to a second term, a term that was marked happily by giant strides and landmark achievements in the critical areas of state finances, education, integrated rural development and healthcare, inter alia.  An admirable advocate for good governance, Peter Obi became a truly national political figure after decamping to the PDP in 2014 and subsequently became Alhaji Abubakar Atiku’s running-mate during the 2015 presidential election which the PDP lost to the APC’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.

You are again reminded of late Chief Lamidi Adedibu’s famous quip to the effect that ‘If you do not want to be told who dated your mother before your father married her, then don’t enter politics’.  Unsurprisingly, therefore, Peter Obi is now permanently under the microscope, his entire existence being interrogated with such cruel explicitness.

By 2022, Obi ran for president himself, first in the PDP, until he defected to the Labour Party (LP) in May, 2022 following irreconcilable ideological differences between him and the PDP.  A hugely charismatic and charming personality, Peter Obi is refreshingly down-to-earth, articulate and incredibly passionate about the survival of the Nigeria Project.  He often speaks “with his whole chest” on burning topical issues such as Nigeria’s debt profile, the IPOB, insecurity, official/institutional corruption and the urgent need to promote frugality and thrift in our public life.  To be sure, Obi has captured his compatriots’ collective imaginary with his personalisation of “No Shishi” policy.  This close-fistedness of a well-meaning skinflint has already ruffled many a feather in covens of power and privilege and put the nation on notice that a new Sheriff stands poised to storm the Ba-stille and clear out the yamayama of the ancien regime.  Affable, personable and fetchingly easy-on-the-eye, Peter Obi’s soft-spokenness belies an adamantine tough-mindedness, a rebellious streak and the tenacity of a cat whose back never touches the floor.  Not even Amalinze the Cat comes close in this regard.  He once told a body of Christian believers that the church should be shut down and let everybody, as Eric Donaldson counsels in his reggae song, take up their hoes, and machetes and till the earth.  Only a rebel with a cause would say such unorthodox things right in the Temple of God!  But thank goodness, his audience of star-struck congregants knew he was speaking some home-truths.  As the foregoing shows, Obi’s academic and intellectual laurels and the intimidating armature of professional achievements stand him in excellent stead to lead our beleaguered and woe-bygone nation.  Brimful of a can-do spirit, a never-say-die predisposition, Obi is never flustered or fazed by the many adversities threatening our corporate existence.  Even as Governor, he was able to withstand the blizzards from his fellow Anambrarians, particularly some political journeymen who would rather die than to see him actualise his vision for his beloved state by the Niger.  But he did okay, regardless.

Supreme Court of Nigeria

By fighting for his rights and seeing that justice was served, Obi had gone all the way to the Supreme Court to prize free his purloined mandate from the leprous fingers of usurpers.  He has thus demonstrated his abiding faith in the nation’s judicial system; in the rule of law, constitutionalism and the Principle of Due Process. He has equally helped in deepening and enriching our political culture and our judiciary.  A leader strong on strategy, a bridge-builder par excellence, Peter Obi yet again demonstrated his uncommon vision and deep understanding of the back-stories of our national conversation by picking Alhaji Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running-mate.  Who is Datti?  Where is he from?  Can he deliver his ward, local council let alone the entirety of the north?  Is this a major chink in Obi’s armour, a miscalculation with disastrous consequences in  the immediate and in the long run?  Ah, the self-inflicted pulverisation of Peter the Rock!  After keeping the nation on tenterhooks, is Datti the best you could get in the north? Do you know or reckon with the warriors of electoral sweepstakes you are up against?  This is the mother of all battles for the Soul of Nigeria, not a talk-shop for dapper and debonair political arrivistes!  So far, the supporters and denouncers of the choice of Datti Baba-Ahmed as the Vice-presidential nominee of the Labour Party (LP) have set the social media on fire.  However, let’s meet Datti Baba-Ahmed.  Datti is one of the 33 children of his father, an Arab cattle trader, with roots in Mauritania.  Born in 1975, Datti Baba-Ahmed is a Nigerian economist and politician from Zaria, in Kaduna State.  He had served as Senator for Kaduna North from 2011 to 2012 and member of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007.  He attended University of Maiduguri where he earned B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Economics and also bagged an MBA degree from the University of Cardiff, Wales and in 2006, capped his educational pursuit with a PhD from the University of Westminster, UK. Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed is, like Mr Peter Obi, an advocate for good governance, well-known for his strong views on anti-corruption and an opponent of the ill-fated Third Term Agenda of Obasanjo.  He is an academic and proprietor of Baze University, Abuja.  He is also a notable professor and expert on Islamic jurisprudence.  According to reports, Datti Baba-Ahmed set up both Baze University, Abuja and Baba-Ahmed University, Kano to tackle the rot in Nigeria’s education system.  Additionally, he is a leader in his Baze business grouping; a well-accomplished philanthropist and employer of labour with thousands earning their daily bread, thanks for him.  Following Dr Doyin Okupe’s resignation from his position as placeholder for the long-awaited running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed was recently unveiled and presented to the world as Obi’s running-mate.  With his vast professional experience in banking and in the business world, it is hoped Baba-Ahmed will prove a Midas touch to national leadership side by side his principal, Mr Peter Obi.  Obi himself has been quoted as saying: “I prefer younger people who have a lot to offer rather than recycling old hands.”  By the same token, he also posited thus: “I want people who can look me in the eyes and disagree with me during cabinet meetings.  People who have their own minds and ideas.”

Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed

As earlier noted, Mr Peter Obi has charmed and captured the imagination of Nigerians, especially the youth.  Even without Obi giving them Shishi, countless groups of young people have banded together in what is being called the Obidient Movement.  Bursting at the seams with anarchic energy and creative savvy, these groups of “Obidients” are mobilising the entire country to dump and ditch “recycled old hands” for a fresh and new beginning.  And they consider Obi the embodiment of a leader of their dreams.  They believe he will break the chains of Pharaoh and lead them to the Promised Land.  The Movement is disdainful of and impatient with all the signs and symbols of the status quo.  They consequently pay scant attention to ethnicity, religion or region.  They are united by their anger at the old order; at the paralysis of will on the part of government to tackle corruption, insecurity and revamp the economy.  The ASUU strike action has lingered on for months on end and students have been left scratching their heads over their stolen futures.  Hunger is real and rife in the land as prices of goods and services keep rising astronomically.  Crime, too, has been thrown into the mix, further complicating the plot.  That the country has not imploded is nothing short of a miracle.  Thus, our youth now look back and ahead in anger as they also look to hone and harness this anger into a potent weapon for mass emancipation and empowerment.  Their anger finds creative and pacifist outlets in social engagement, political activism, agit-prop activist song-writing, free-styling, fashion as political statement, among others.  Even a young barber designed a Peter Obi facial image on a client’s head!  Social media is buzzing and bouncing with songs and jingles about the Obi Revolution.  Some Nollywood stars and Nigerian musicians are also in on the act.  Microblogging social networking sites are absolutely rocking with the Obi phenomenon.  To be certain, the neologism industry has also received a massive boost, courtesy young people coining and minting new lexical items to capture and convey the Obi fever.  In time, scholars and researchers will undertake serious research on this art/act of political communication.  Well-known columnist, Festus Adedayo has compared Peter Obi to Rosa Parks, the African-American woman whose principled refusal to yield to the racist denigration of people of colour regarding segregation and white privilege in public transportation had sparked the birth of the Civil Rights Movement in the late ’50s and early ’60s in the US.  Her singular heroic act of defiance had presaged the momentous advent of President Barack Obama, several years later.  We do not discount days of small beginnings nor keen the death of a day when there still remains an hour of light.  The Obi movement is now a worldwide phenomenon as can be attested by the AY LIVE SHOW in far-away Maryland, USA!  The UK and continental Europe are equally “representing”.  Deep within the quiet of his mind, Peter Obi is amazed and, probably, terrified by what has become of his solitary reveries, an idle daydream that gradually showed green shoots of possibility.  The rest, as they say, is history.  His dream of leading the world’s most populous black nation has now become a MOVEMENT, far bigger than Peter Obi himself.  On his shoulders rests the hope for a NEW NIGERIA.

However, some media aficionados, commentators and columnists have poured cold water on the promise and redemptive possibilities of an Obi candidacy.  They argue that he lacks intergenerational linkages, or “structure” and experience.  They posit that, even though the two presidential nominees of the two state parties, lack the “visionary capacity to set a fresh template and a new beginning for a much abused nation”, they contend that Obi will be done in by process and procedure.  They, finally, believe that the two pro-establishment contenders have the historic duty to provide closure to this present darkness.  All in all, this conservative commentariat holds that, in no time at all, Obi and his “Obidients” will succumb to the perverse illogic of their ethnic obeisance in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious polity.  In an ultimate flourish of disdainful dismissal, this motley welter of political observers merely concedes “fifteen minutes of fame” to Peter Obi and all he symbolises.  While we all wait as things unfold in the weeks and months ahead, let’s keep in mind that miracles still happen and we should never discount the divine factor in human affairs in spite of human shenanigans.

Chris Anyokwu writes from University of Lagos