“The leader’s job is to show the way. The bottom line is that you can’t tell anything about the condition of the way if you’ve not travelled on it yourself.”
—Israelmore Ayivor
By Daniel Kanu
Believe it or not, at the moment, Peter Gregory Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) for the 2023 elections has no competitor in the social media.
And if you think it’s only a social media buzz, then you are wrong, you are either professing ignorance or living in self-denial of the reality.
It is not for nothing that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) opened more registration centres across the country.
Now, the stakes are high. The people have been mobilised and they want to make a statement in 2023 that their votes, unlike before, must count in electing their leaders.
There is no doubt that Peter Obi’s move to the Labour Party has speedily gathered huge unprecedented momentum, which political observers say has dramatically altered the political equation of Nigeria’s two-party presidential contest between the APC and PDP to a three-horse race among APC, PDP and LP in 2023.
Following the unparallel leap by the LP into public consciousness, some commentators are even predicting that it will be a fight between the APC/PDP and LP.
Dr Stella Nkume, a university teacher and political analyst told Sunday Sun that the new political equation would be an interesting one.
According to Nkume, “contrary to what some political observers will call a three-pronged contest, it is still two, but in another political arithmetic dimension.
“It will be the two opposing sides, between the two major parties on one side and the masses of the people rallying under the Labor Party on the other side”.
The wise decision and bold exit of Obi from the main opposition, PDP, after his refusal to join in the dollar sharing bazaar at the party’s presidential primary, analysts say, has made him stand out stronger as the game changer.
And given his past records of competence, courage and not-easy to earn enviable reputation, the majority of Nigerians who seem to be dissatisfied with the present system tend to see him as the new face of change that will take back Nigeria from political shylocks.
Knowingly or unknowingly, the indiscretion of the PDP and APC is coming at a time when a Third Force is coming into play in Nigerian politics as an alternative.
Perhaps, the greed and short-sightedness of the two major parties created room for the emergence of that option platform represented by the LP, with Peter Obi, becoming, undisputedly, the rave of the moment.
Unarguably, what the LP lacks in terms of reach and national outlook, it is making up for with the gargantuan image of its presidential candidate.
Obi’s opponents say he has no structure to win the election, but the consciousness he has raised among Nigerians, across all groups, according to political watchers, is massive as that in itself is an intimidating structure.
Obi had said that the elderly ones, mothers, fathers, as well as the old ones dying of being owed gratuity/pension will be the structure to facilitate his victory.
According to Obi, “whenever I hear of no structure, my answer to it is simple: the 100 million Nigerians that live in poverty will be the structure.
“ASUU; the lecturers that are being owed, and the students who are not in school will be the structure.
“We’ll create the structure, and they will see what the structure is all about. The structure is about human beings”.
It is obvious that the nationalistic fervour and renaissance around Obi cannot be wished away in any objective analysis and above all, the youth population and those yearning for a better Nigeria are already hooked with the “Obi-dient” political hurricane spreading across the country and beyond.
Obi’s exit raised a lot of moral questions on whether Nigerians should continue with business as usual in the 2023 presidential election. For instance, how do we want to be taken seriously as a country by other nations when the most important political office in the land is bought or sold to the highest bidder? How do we expect good leadership from a rotten foundation of corruption, profligacy, recklessness and crass hedonism? Why must we be mercantile about our national leadership and development? Why must we even continue the recycling of those with jaded ideas when the world has gone digital rather than embrace those whose thoughts are painted on a global canvass and with capacity to influence the international space for nationalistic benefit of citizens.
Sunday Sun findings revealled that the Peter Obi movement is not a Southeast affair, no. It is a pan-Nigerian movement, a movement where the best of Nigeria’s celebrities across all sentiments have bought into and they are all singing “Let’s Peterise Nigeria”.
“Peterising” Nigeria for them means a change of leadership to one that has what it takes to salvage Nigeria.
There conviction is based not on the fact that Obi was denied the opportunity in the PDP, but that he is a man whose track records show he stands tall on competence in leadership.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the tide of the events to come will spring a surprise with an Obi tsunami if the political tempo elicited so far continues as it is today.
Take it or leave it; Peter Obi is a movement and the biggest phenomenon in Nigeria today.
For Peter Obi, it is left to the masses of Nigerians to take their destiny in their own hands by voting in a clean incorruptible personality he is bringing to bear, thereby charting a new leadership course for Nigeria.
Peter Gregory Obi was born on July 19, 1961. He attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. And was former governor of Anambra State under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).