Very often we try to glimpse what lies around the corner, the thing that will, or could, or might be. As a result, we forget the fundamentals, why things always go wrong with our politics, why, indeed, our politics doesn’t follow the natural curve. It is the reason why true change has been hard to come. These things are not just facts; they are truths for any discerning mind to learn lessons from- lessons in power. Anyone who thinks that 23 years of the present political dispensation is enough for our democracy to have grown to such a level where election to the highest office in the land – the presidency – would be based on the programmes and policies of political parties and character of the aspirants to the office rather than ethnicity, religious preference and other primordial sentiments, last weekend’s Presidential primary of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has presented something to mull over. The lessons are legion. If, indeed, you had followed the party line well ahead of the convention that again, produced former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its Presidential candidate for next year’s election, and had paid attention to what was going on, one clear conclusion stares us in the face: that our politics is broken beyond repair.
Also, if you are a student of politics, trying to study the voting patterns of ethnic and religious groups(with the exception of the South East), in a systematic way and use the information to extrapolate about the national scene come 2023 Presidential poll, this is a rare opportunity to do so. It’s an unusual opportunity for understanding the interplay between primordial sentiments and religion. Character and competency matter little here. That’s the reality of where our politics has taken us. The Presidential primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) this weekend is not going to be any different. Rather, it will widen the fault lines that divide us. At the end of the circus show, it will be more evident that money has become undoubtedly, the lifeblood of our politics, and our democracy has become sadly, all about fulfilling all righteousness by treating the electorate to the ballot box on Election Day. It may be a requiem to legitimacy. But elections ought to offer valid choices.
But in all the annoying, frustrating season, that has made our politics a ‘cash-and- carry’, unedifying, poisonous venture, the good news is that one man has stood out in courage, in honour and character of conviction that politics should be played by its own rules, rules governing behaviour and integrity. No one has shown that prescience, that foreknowledge, that great memory for the details of politics as Mr.Peter Obi,a former two- term governor of Anambra state, and Vice Presidential Candidate of PDP in the 2019 Election. I must confess that when news broke few days to the PDP Special Presidential primary, that Peter has resigned from the PDP, and joined the Labour Party (LP), I told a colleague of mine, in clear anger, “Labour Party kwa”( literally meaning, Labour Party, of all parties).
Looking back now, Obi saw the future, that the PDP convention was skewed against him, in favour of the deep pockets, those with awesome war chest, not for people with ideas on how to change the present, sad state of affairs in our country. He said that much in his resignation letter to the PDP National Chairman, Sen. Iyorchia Ayu. That’s why Peter Obi is different. The difference reveals both his genius and genial character, virtues that are in short supply in our politics today. I am not saying that Mr. Obi doesn’t have his shortcomings, but he has demonstrated, time and time again, that without a vision beyond their own advancement, our politics and politicians have been paralyzed once the goal of acquiring power has been achieved. He is not your kind of a “fowl with white feathers”, the ambitious, cynical player, adept at amassing power whose temperament and behaviour are often at odds with those of the imaginative visionary able to achieve great things with that power. One of his notable quotes of recent days, for which he will be remembered is, “I rather lose doing the right thing than win doing the wrong thing”. This tension is as real in business (a sector he came from) as it’s in politics.
His vast experience in business, I believe, must have taught him that successful executives who have stumbled on the last rung of the ladder or failed at the top because, essentially, they could not make the switch from ambitious executive to corporate leader. They also did not know what to do with the power they had so expertly accumulated. But, successful leaders, whether in business or politics, somehow manage to do both, seek power not for its sake, but using great power for great purposes. Not understanding this difference is one of the reasons why our politics has not been able to produce real leaders in the true sense of it. This is because, for them, “having a larger end”, to use the words of presidential historian Robert A. Caro, “has always been important for political leaders”, but not so for businesspeople. That’s why flies can stay on hot stove. They will die.
No leader can be great who does not know how to use power. For all the period he was in PDP, Peter Obi was like a sunshine after the storm. He brought new hope and optimism, a warm hand, that our politics was about to return to the centre, for that is where majority of our people who have been at the short end of the stick due to successive governments flip-flop policies resides. But you see, the stranglehold of the incumbent governors are making it extremely difficult, for good leaders to be at the helm. Both in PDP and APC, our politicians have not paid much attention to the public- service part of the job. Again, that’s why Obi is uniquely different. That’s why a great many Nigerians, especially the youths were shocked and disappointed at the way the PDP precess for electing its standard bearer for 2023 presidential made the odds against Obi overwhelmingly intolerable. It’s a bad omen for the party, even though some of the party big wigs won’t admit that.
That he left was a matter of conviction more than anything else. The plot was to humiliate him and perhaps end his political career prematurely. Joining another political party other than the two dominant parties, for me, should be seen as Obi’s finest hour. It’s not about wining or losing, it’s about doing the right thing, with your conscience intact. Many of them have no agenda, but the desire for power to dominate others, not power to accomplish goals for the country and better the lives of the people. See where APC has put us all, in a deep hole. It was because Muhammadu Buhari sought power to bend people to his will. In the process, he has ruined the country.
I agree with columnist Akin Osuntokun(This Day, May 27,2022) that the “good news is that Peter Obi is not just coming on the platform of zoning but in his own right as perhaps the most compelling candidate of the season”. He also reasoned logically, that “one of the significant highlights of the current election cycle is the invitation of Obi to 10 Downing Street, London as guest of the British Prime Minister. As a non-Nigerian government action, the privilege extended to him has no precedence in recent memory. And rightly so, it’s going to give his political leadership standing a measure tailwind”. It’s something of a breathtaking scope. Whatever is the outcome of Peter Obi’s sojourn with Labour Party, it should be seen beyond the new momentum he is set to give the party, win or lose, one key element is his utter realism, his ability to look facts – even very unpleasant facts- in the face and not let himself be deluded by the common refrain, “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Altogether, there’s something one man can do to change the ugly face of our politics. That will be one of his enduring legacies.