By Kassim Afegbua.
I saw a five seconds video clip of Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, in which he said; “Please, the Church, wake up and take back your country”. That seems to be the punchline of his campaign to The Church in his several stops to drum loud his aspiration to occupy Aso Rock in 2023. In another video clip, I saw some armed men shoot sporadically to disperse supposed pro-Obi crowd somewhere in Enugu State; perhaps to scare them away from holding the said gathering. Probing further, and listening to the voice in the background, I could hear a voice saying they wouldn’t want any “fulani in their area” kind of thing. This got me thinking. Is Peter Obi now a fulani candidate, or was this a deliberately orchestrated script to convey the impression that Peter Obi isn’t enjoying the support of the IPOB (unknown gunmen)? Knowing full well that there have been accusations that Peter Obi is an Igbo candidate. The first video clip where Peter Obi had stated that the Church should wake up and take back their country scores a distinction in Peter Obi’s effort to secure the endorsement of Christians across board, but it is dangerous for Nigeria’s secularity. He has campaigned inside church premises more than any other candidate. He has visited The Emir of Kano’s Palace wearing overnight babariga, that made him look awkwardly nuanced, like fish out of water; even wearing shoes into the arena and walking away carefreely with unpresidential gusto. His adherents praised him on the one hand for being real with his true, unpretentious identity without wearing babariga. They were helplessly confused when in one fell swoop they saw him with a babariga in the same arena, obviously impulsively given to him by one of his supporters to share in the tradition and attire of the North.
Both scenarios exposed the fact that Peter Obi contradicts Peter Obi. It is for the same reason that his supporters have been trying to justify the convolution in his academic trajectory that has exposed so many loopholes; graduating before obtaining O’Level, and perhaps not showing his NYSC certificate. The usual noise and boisterous engagements in the social media petered out for some days, mayhap to allow the new reality to sink in and possibly look for suitable alibi to justify Peter’s concoctions. The next thing you would hear would be a rehash of weather beaten rhetorics; “oh, wisdom is not a function of Education”, “success is not determined by certificates”; all those banalities that underscore the contradictions in our system. Obi-dients, as his followers and adherents are wont to call themselves, seeing him as stuff of dreams, have suddenly become “Obi-diots”, unable to reconcile the zig-zag academic trajectory of their prospect. As much as one is bound to recognise Obi’s inalienable right to seek for the highest office in Nigeria, the noise of his movement is not methodical and organised. They seem to believe that public shows of mass movements and gatherings would determine the popularity of his aspiration and his victory, even before the election. Gathering crowds on busy highways and showing such fanfare as a measure of Obi’s popularity is not enough; as a barometer to read the oscillation of the 2023 election. If crowds actually win elections, Atiku Abubakar would have defeated President Buhari in Kano state in 2019 election. The crowd that Atiku pulled at the Kano township stadium was alarm bell. He ended up scoring about four hundred and forty five thousand votes at the presidential election, a far cry from President Buhari’s one million five hundred thousand votes or thereabout.
This is not to suggest that Peter Obi is not formidable in his aspiration, but a few slacks here and there also mean that he doesn’t appear ready for leadership. First and foremost, Peter Obi was a Governor of Anambra state for eight solid years. I cannot place my hand on any legacy projects that remain as Obi’s footprints in the state, which is still suffering huge infrastructural deficit. Under him, doctors went on strike for over thirteen weeks, workers groaned, insecurity was everywhere, schools were derelict; even though he handed over some of them to Missionaries. He would quickly refer us to the performance of Anambrians in WASC results, but the state of some of the schools where learning was done was nothing to write home about. There were bad roads everywhere. Erosion and ecological disasters were visible themes of a state whose Governor reportedly “saved” N75b for his successor. With such an amount saved, one would have thought that Peter Obi had finished solving the problems of the state; but the developmental challenges that Governor Obiano had to solve exposed the double standards of his predecessor. After Governor Obiano, Professor Soludo has already borrowed N100b( One Hundred Billion Naira) as intervention fund to confront the developmental gaps in the state. If the state still contends with such huge infrastructural gaps, and Obi had saved N75b( Seventy Five Billion Naira) when he left office, it is rational to conclude that rather than spend money to confront those gaps, he was more interested in the amount he reportedly left behind.
Government does not run on a profit and loss basis all over the world. That is why every country contends with huge debt issues. Even the first World countries are not insulated from debts. Government’s responsibility is, among other things, to provide an enabling environment for people to pursue their legitimate aspirations without encumbrances. She provides infrastructure, security, welfare services and provides platforms for economic activities. Keeping N75b( Seventy Five Billion Naira) in the coffers of Anambra state when the people were unable to sleep with their two eyes closed, or when some schools were still in their dilapidated state, was in my view, a misjudgement. This also defines Obi’s ridiculous theory of one man, one wrist-watch mentality, or one man, one shoes frugality. These austerity measures or lifestyles are killers of economy and productivity. If everyone of us is left with the option of wearing just one wristwatch or wearing a pair of shoes for seventeen years, the companies producing shoes and wristwatches would certainly close down for lack of patronage. This is why the public must interrogate Obi’s theories and subject them to further scrutiny before he rams them down our throats. Productivity, my fellow country men and women is what creates employment. Investment is what creates opportunities for people to be gainfully employed. If we follow Peter Obi’s austere lifestyle and measures, we may end up on the wrong side of the bed by daybreak.
Does he live up to his claim? I doubt it. Last week, I challenged one of Obi’s supporters over the latter’s private jet trip to Kano to pay a visit to The Emir of Kano. In the video clip, Peter Obi was seen alighting from a private jet to the warm embrace of those who had assembled at the airport to welcome him. At first, I thought my eyes were seeing double until I saw the faces of some of my friends who are Obi-diently wired. And I queried the ostentatious means of transportation; on account of Obi’s generally held position that private jet travel is a waste of resources especially on routes that commercial planes ply. It is the same way I queried Obi’s private jet trip from Enugu to Asaba last year when he visited Agbor to participate in Governor Okowa’s father’s burial. Enugu to Asaba cannot be more than 3 hours journey by road. So, when a man preaches one lifestyle and lives another, it gets me wondering. Peter Obi is by all standards a billionaire. Nobody is breathing down his throat not to spend his money the way he likes; but to pretend to uphold austere principles while showing signs of ostentation is what disturbs my inner recesses. The truth of the matter is that Peter Obi has been junketing about in private jets but his Obi-dient followers are blind to it. The next thing I heard was that the plane was a free donation from one of his supporters. Have we interrogated the so-called donor to be sure he doesn’t belong to the class of oppressors who have held us down? Too many questions begging for answers.
Peter Obi must exercise restraint in throwing up the religious agenda in his campaign. Telling churches to wake up and take back their country is a gross miscalculation of the dynamics that regularly factorise political equations in the country. The church and the mosque are bodies of worship for those who are seeking religious salvation, and not political salvation. Politics is about governance and how to make the world a better place for those who inhabit it. If you are a General Overseer and or a Pastor, or Chief Imam, and you are exploiting the finances of your church or mosque, you are more of a burden to the society than a solution. If you invested tithes in building schools, event centres, and you refuse to allow members of.your congregants to attend the schools because of exorbitant fees, you are not only satanic but are a wicked soul that should be condemned to Hell Fire. It is ungodly to exploit people in the name of God.
Nigeria is a secular state and it is not a country of two religions but many religions. Allow the God and gods of all religions to fight for themselves and stop throwing up sentiments that can snowball into avoidable crises. Anyone who tries to play up the religious card would end up digging a pitfall for himself. Nigeria is too sensitive a country to be glided on the path of religious superiority. Calling on the church to take back their country? As Obi had declared? That is a most unconscionable advertorial for a candidate who sees his aspiration as a movement of the youths. Nobody is quarrelling with the ostentatious mobile dancers across the country in the name of campaigns, when the market has closed, we will all know who sold wares and made profit. In so far as Obi is a candidate from the South, his aspiration still resonates some credence than the man who wants us to go the Northern route again.