On August 6, 2018, when Ray Ekpu, one of the four musketeers that founded the famous Newswatch magazine, celebrated his 70 years on earth and 45 years in journalism, the event was a jaw-jaw function instead of a chop-chop occasion. Likely in concordance with his cut for examining Nigeria’s leadership, it was themed “Nigeria: The Leadership Question”. Chaired by erudite Bolaji Akinyemi, a professor of International Relations, the “70:45” colloquium moderated by Dan Agbese, had keynote speech from Chidi Amuta. Other speakers at the event included Sam Omatseye, chairman Editorial Board of The Nation, Segun Osoba and Victor Attah, former governors of Ogun and Akwa Ibom States respectively.
Following a remark by one of the speakers that Nigeria was yet to have political leaders across the three level of government that could be modeled for good leadership, Attah was so displeased to a point of not hiding his furiousness and boisterousness when he spoke. Though he mentioned that he was of example during his eight years governorship in Akwa Ibom between 1999 and 2007, he angrily and abruptly ended his remark and came down from the podium at Agip Recital Hall at Muson centre in Lagos.
At the 2022 edition of annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, Chimamanda Adichie, who gave a keynote address, was milder in her assertion that young Nigerians have few leaders to hail as heroes. She mentioned only two Nigerians: Gani Fawehinmi, who was uncompromising in his expensive principle of legal practice and rights activism, and Dora Akunyile, an unbending and daredevil former Director General of NAFDAC, Nigeria’s food and drug regulatory agency. Although the worldwide celebrated writer did not mention Peter Obi, a former two-term governor of her native Anambra State, the apparent mass movement trailing the presidential ambition of the businessman and politician is lending credence that Nigeria has at least one exemplary leader, if not more, to sample for ideal leadership.
Obi is one Nigerian leader that is more popular and endearing to the people even more than he was while in public office. In his governorship days, there was no fantastic facelift of Anambra’s physical environment.
He was not without some shortcomings commonly seen among Nigerian governors. For instance, he failed to conduct local government elections in the state as at when due, thereby failing short of the provision of the Nigerian Constitution as provided in Section 1(2).
Although Anambra could not be said to have attained El Dorado under his watch, Obi was exceptional in many ways compared to other Nigerian governors of previous and present days. He frowned at flamboyancy, financial recklessness and peremptory plying and promptings of Africans in powers. In his private and public outings, he clothed himself with rare simplicity and humility. He incurred no debt for his successors as his administration borrowed no kobo but saved and invested huge millions of naira for the future of the state.
In the course of his public speaking, which characterises a chunk of his days outside government, he talks less, if at all, of George Washington, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Lee Kuan Yee, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan or Bill Clinton. For ease of verification, he keeps modeling his doings while serving as Anambra governor. Even as he personally blows his trumpet, he has been able to wade off the temptation of arrogance and haughty contempt. With admirable lace of authoritativeness, Obi models himself with solemnity, submissiveness and piety of a Catholic that he is.
In my collections, Obi is the second Nigerian politician after legendary Nnamdi Azikiwe in the days of Nigerian Youth Movement that gives vibrancy to youth political activism and earns groundswell appeal across all ages and diverse tribes in Nigeria. On this score, it must be acknowledged that the failure of either Vice President Yemi Osinbajo or Tunde Bakare to clinch APC’s presidential ticket for 2023 elections is of added advantage to Obi. The two cerebral scholars and pastors of the Yoruba stock are greatly endowed with alluring oratorical prowess just as messages proceeding from their mouths sprinkle some hope on the despondent citizens. Since the return to democracy in 1999, Obi is the first presidential candidate from a fledgling political party that is not just considered top contestants but gives the two main political parties a run for their money.
Going by the coinage name of OBI-dients, many Nigerians in search of ideal leadership have voluntarily joined the march for a better Nigeria. In sync with Obi’s projection, the Labour party’s presidential aspiration is not laying claim to “my turn” or our turn as Bola Tinubu of the APC publicly cried out. Rather, the movement is about the turn of Nigerians desirous of a good leader for purposes of effecting good governance to have their say and their way through ballots.
The major issue raised by cynics is that the Obi-dient movement is a social media creation with no concrete structure on ground to match its competitors and march Obi to the coveted presidential seat in Aso Rock. Though social media, which is rivaling broadcasting media in the business of media propaganda, may sometimes fall short of presenting situation of things as the really are, since the population plying the platforms are that of humans and not inanimate beings, it is mistaken to totally dismiss the goings-on in the social media as artificial with no natural effects.
Be that as it may, in a party-based political competition like ours, the strength of a political party counts a great deal. In the Nigerian locality, the needed strength predominantly entails organised spread of party faithful and followers across all nooks and crannies, strong financial base and presence of men and women in the mould of what Ozumba Mbadiwe called “timber and calibers, juggernaut and caterpillar”. That is where Labour party is grossly lacking.
Again, whereas Nigeria has close to 1500 elective station of political jobs at the state and federal levels out of which 1491 places will be slugged out for in the 2023 general election, the OBI-dient movement is all about Obi. With that narrowing of concentration to one position amidst over a thousand in a general election, it will take some sort of miracle for Labour party, which is unlikely to make impressive outing in other contests, to win the presidency. Granted, it springs wonders to the world by winning the presidency, it would be confronted with daunting challenges of driving the envisaged good governance in that a tree, as our proverb says, does not form a forest.
Obi is undoubtedly a good product. But the platform through which the product is being sold to the public is not strong enough, hence the doubts as to the viability of the product withstanding, let alone, beating its competitors, at a fiercely competitive market place dominated by hegemonic PDP and APC. Simply put, One OBI-dient is too mean to march one to the office of Nigeria’s president, just as it would be to face the country’s intractable challenges and restore Nigeria to Nigerians.
With the realities of the moment, except those beclouded by wishful thinking, misled by mirage of social media propaganda, misguided by narrow-based opinion polls and hoodwinked by hysteria of a seeming mass movement, it is easy and safe to predict that impactful as the Obi-dient would make during the electioneering, it would take something close to the feeding of over 5000 people with five loaves and two fishes for Obi to win the 2023 presidential election.
However, whichever way the pendulum will swings to in the 2023 presidential election, contrary to Omatseye’s submission in one of his recent column in THE NATION that the Labour party candidate would meet his political obituary at the election, the election could be a rebirth of Obi’s presidential ambition and reinvigoration of renaissance of a powerful third force that could dislodge the political hegemonies in no distant years.
Ekanem sent this article through: nsikak4media@gmail.com
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
