Many an establishment politicians didn’t see Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party of Nigeria coming. Having descended too deep into the thorny and murky labyrinth of Nigerian politics, a typical establishment politician has become very adapted to his political ecosystem that they cannot feel the wind of democratic change blowing around them. I recall having a conversation with a chieftain of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, who was a strong supporter of Atiku Abubakar ahead of their presidential primaries in May 2022 where I posed the question of Peter Obi’s rumoured interest in the race. He confirmed to me that indeed Peter Obi has informed him about his interest but my host was also quick to dismiss him as lighter than a feather weight politician whose ambition will certainly not take off from ground and redirected our conversation towards the Atiku for president project. But I quickly chipped in that if indeed he declares his interest run for the presidency, ‘’Peter Obi will take the shine off Abubakar Atiku’’ something he again dismissed as the ‘’opinion of an ordinary journalist who is not a politician’’.
Characterised by debauchery, treachery, covetousness of men most callous, Nigeria’s democratic political leadership recruitment process has steadily degenerated into a criminal franchise of power grab for self service; a situation that has arrested Nigeria’s collective development since the advent of the 4th republic in 1999. But while Nigeria has been reduced to the bottom of the pyramid of human development, where life is nasty, brutish and short, members of the political establishment in their incurable optimism are like trees in the jungle who were confortable being felled by an axe because the handle is carved out of wood. By the next general election in 2023, when Nigeria’s 4th republic would have been 24 years old, a generation of young Nigerian adults would have grown up into a country where corruption, insecurity and economic mismanagement have turned their Nigerian dreams into a nightmare. And it is a section of this demography that is the main driving force of the Obidient movement.
Inspired by his records of financial discipline and frugal management of public resources as the former governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi’s army of supporters have come to identify him as possessing the requisite qualification to meet Nigeria’s leadership needs at the critical stage. Drawn from every part of Nigeria and across ethno-religious divides, the Obidient movement is an organic and self-funded groups across Nigeria that are mobilizing support for the presidential aspiration of Peter Obi. So massive is this support that Peter Obi has emerged a frontline contender for the presidency along with the ruling APC and main opposition PDP. From dismissing him as a non-starter in the 2023 presidential race to deriding his social media supporters as four people twitting from a room, it is now becoming clearer to the establishment that Peter Obi’s Obidient movement is set to cause a major disruption in the 2023 presidential election, they have decided to go after the very inspiration for the surging Obidient movement. And leading this charge is Chukwuma Soludo.
A professor, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and current governor of Anambra state, Chukwuma Charles Soludo in a widely published piece he wrote, attempted to deconstruct Peter Obi’s records of good governance and ultimately reduce him to an ‘’Igbo’’ candidate who will not go far in the race for the 2023 presidential election. According to Soludo, his missive against Obi was in response to social media attacks from Obidients over his comment that Peter Obi’s much talked about investments on behalf of Anambra state are now worth next to nothing. But in his response, Soludo didn’t just stop at providing more information about his claims, rather he embarked on a voyage of unforced revelation of private conversations between him and peter Obi while also offering an unsolicited advice to Ndigbo on how not to exercise their democratic rights in 2023. But if Soludo’s missive on Peter Obi, which can be likened to the stabbing of Julius Caesar by Brutus his friend, was intended to derail the Obidient movement, it may have achieved the unintended. Just as the killing of Julius Caesar didn’t preserve the Roman republic and prevent the emergence of Octavian as Emperor Augustus of Rome, Soludo’s attempt to undermine Peter Obi has resulted into an increase in support for Peter Obi because what his aspiration represents is an idea whose time has come and nothing or nobody including Soludo can stop it.
Interestingly, in his lengthy write up, there is nowhere Soludo accused Peter Obi of corruption or mismanagement of public funds. Rather, Soludo disingenuously decided to delegitimize the culture of savings when he said ‘’governments exists to save lives not money’’. Yet, the same Soludo also claimed that upon assumption of office, he met an empty treasury and has resorted to levying taxes on wheel barrow pushers, cart pushers, tricycle riders, buses and taxis to fund government. And blaming Peter Obi for the current state of an investment that was done more than a decade ago is like blaming Michael Okpara, the premier of the old eastern region for what has become of Golden Guinea breweries he established more than half a century ago.
However, Soludo’s greatest disservice wasn’t to Peter Obi’s presidential ambition but to the collective aspiration for political inclusivity of Ndigbo. As far as Soludo was concerned, Ndigbo are an insignificant minority of no political consequence who should never aspire for the presidency of Nigeria simply because they are Igbo. Since 1999, Ndigbo have supported others to become president beginning from Olusegun Obasanjo to Umar Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan yet Soludo do not think Igbos are deserving of equal reciprocity as free citizens of Nigeria. Whereas, Peter Obi is not an Igbo candidate, he nevertheless is like a prophet that is recognized at home and the 2023 presidential election offers a rare opportunity to Ndigbo to prove their electoral worth just as the north did with Muhammadu Buhari’s CPC in 2011.