Peter Obi: The president that never was

By Abdu Abdullahi

The variables that worked against Obi were stronger than those which worked in his favour. Yet, the consummate side of Obi was his stylistic and mass social media movement that recruited especially the youths en masse. His outing was largely the product of impressive, compelling as well as intimidating impulses.

Eventually, Mr. Peter Obi’s pioneering political experiment crashed and exploded in the fierce battle of the last election. Earlier, he had stormed the political scene with a very brilliant and juggernaut concept of playing the political card of an Igbo presidential candidate under the Labour Party. But the opium of religious intolerance poisoned the soul of his soaring aspiration.

Obi and any other political warrior could not lift the burden of religious politics and land safely in Nigeria. He should have deployed the style of belonging to everyone and belonging to no one to enhance his political horizon. This is Nigeria of complex diversity and the Obi movement’s failure to adhere to the conventions of heterogeneity impaired his political journey. But why did the Muslim-Muslim ticket not collapse in the first place? The answer is simple. The contentious licence was a child of a peculiar circumstance that once existed and worked effectively during the days of the SPD’s Abiola and Kingibe. It was not a calculated scheming to impose a religious impression or values on Nigeria. But in Obi’s trial, it was a deliberate effort to counter the Muslim-Muslim electorate identity. Ironically, it was this political shenanigans that magically worked for the APC when the LP, NNPP and the PDP were in disarray, each battling for political supremacy.

The fundamental discrepancy between the APC and the LP’s religious undertone was that the former was strategically innovated to win an election whereas the latter was loosely imposed to lose an election. While the APC drew its philosophy from the particular to the general, the LP experimented on the ideology of the general to the particular. It was that particularization trademark and sentimental bondage that consumed Obi’s religious army. In a religious solemnisation for an exchange with inclusiveness of diversity, Obi’s political vanguard could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As a beginner, Obi represented a newly quintessential optimism for the Igbo to explore and make their way to the presidency, but his political adventure lacked universal value. His political nexus believed not in creating wider spaces but narrowed down the spaces to victimise itself. He wanted to control the centre but ended up gambling with anti central forces to sabotage political connections and the key to giving full life to his politics was maliciously subverted.

Nevertheless, he was both a loser as well as a winner. He was a loser owing to the enslavement of his party by the squad of religious belligerence. He was a winner as a result of the triumph of his self esteem. He sacrificed political permutations for sentiment to prevail. Being the only pronounced Christian contender in the race, those who voted him on religious group inflicted fatal wounds on his political dreams. To heal the injuries will be too cumbersome. Mr. Peter may fall and rise again politically, but Obi is a good idea in a presidential contest and his name will remain in a secured place where history gives it life.

The variables that worked against Obi were stronger than those which worked in his favour. Yet, the consummate side of Obi was his stylistic and mass social media movement that recruited especially the youths en masse. His outing was largely the product of impressive, compelling as well as intimidating impulses. The Obi overwhelming phenomenon was and is still more powerful and promising than the Biafra rebellious eruption. Going by Obi’s frantic efforts to the Villa, it is just a matter of time and discerning deployments for the Igbo to get the relevant political preparation and weather the storm.

While I believed strongly that his presidency dream emanated from an opportunity, he seized it and instantly shot into national consciousness. Obi’s facial expression of a determined presidential aspirant deepened my hope on him. The riches of his self confidence of winning the election bewildered me as they were not squandered on bickering with opponents. His choice of the erudite Dr. Datti Ahmed as his running mate delighted my heart. His political art of attacking ideas and not people to woo the electorates impressed me. Marie Curie agreed that we should be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. But sadly, his combative with ideas was saddled with overtly religious monopolisation and mobilisation by general party sympathisers as well as elements.

The Obi we saw in the last electoral competition classified a charming and glowing concept that glorified him as major stakeholder in progress .He was able to resurcitate the politically dying spirit of the Igbo nation in the battle for political supremacy in the country. He conscientised the political conscience of the Igbo to plan and make investment on a hugely political project for a possible power control. He came with a political message that was more powerful than the ‘politics of the Biafra’. He was dispossessed of the ghost of Biafra to focus on the national politics and accomplish the task of its expression. With this, he created his own political story that will endure and the politics will also write its own story of Mr. Peter Obi.

If Obi could win Plateau and Nasarawa states with a landslide conquest, it was very likely that history had rebounced and taught us a good lesson. Recall that the old Plateau comprising the present Nasarawa identified with the politics of the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Nevertheless, his impressive outings in other Christians dominated areas of the north unravels the religiousity of Obi’s political platform. To sustain the gains of his last political display therefore, he must liberate our minds from the impression of seeing his party as belonging to the Christians alone. My emphasis is always on the religious affinity attached to Obi and not the ethnic dimension, for the latter is less offensive.

Obi must sincerely revisit the quality of his recent political adventure with a view to exposing his conspicuous flaws, effecting necessary amendments with a view to averting future reoccurrences. He should discard the false attraction of winning the election and his mandate being robbed. He ought to admit that the poverty of his aspirations was more of religious indoctrination which greatly nosedived during the climax of his ascension. If the political Obi of the last election will be the same in the future election, endorsed by religious forces, then it will be a political tragedy for him.

Mr Peter Obi’s next coming must be an adventurous status that will be holistic. It must rid itself of religious manifestation in all ramifications. Religious politics can only buy him cheap popularity at a very high price. But minus religion, the mantle of leadership will be costless to him.

Abdu Abdullahi is a Public Affairs Analyst.