Peter Obi has the best chance against
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027 of all opposition candidates. Former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) may have received a
slightly higher percentage of the votes (6.9 million or 29.1 percent) in the
last presidential election; still, that was poor for Atiku, a sixth-timer in
the presidential race.
Obi had less than one year to
prepare after his former party, the PDP, shafted him, followed by the bitter
struggle for control between Atiku and the former Governor of Rivers State,
Nyesom Wike, which left the party in ruins.
Outside the wreckage, Obi scored
6.1 million or 25.4 percent of the votes, toppling the All Progressives
Congress (APC) in its traditional Lagos stronghold, energising young voters,
and causing a stir amongst the complacent political elite.
Born to survive
After coming a solid third, the
question was whether he could keep the momentum, strengthen the LP and manage
his vibrant, sometimes fiercely unruly crowd of “Obidient” followers until the
next election cycle.
He has, so far. To have survived
the tumult in the Labour Party (LP), which now has three rival claimants to its
leadership, and watch from the outside, what could be the final burial rites of
his former party, the PDP, Obi has done well.
Yet, as surely as success invites
its perils, he is entering what may prove to be the most delicate phase of his
political journey, two years before the next presidential election. Obi is
confused, and dangerously so, when he needs clarity the most.
Adventure to ADC
He is flirting with the African
Democratic Congress (ADC), the party former President Olusegun Obasanjo vowed
in 2019 would unseat the APC, but which failed disastrously to do so. The ADC’s
past failure is not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is the renewed crisis in the
party; they all have problems, only different in severity.
The problem is that Obi is unsure
whether to join the ADC, which, like the bat, neither resembles a political
rodent nor a coalition bird, or to stand firm and try to repair a fractured LP
before the next election. Although he says he is not desperate, pinching
himself while saying so, he believes this might be his best chance to become
president, which is a fair ambition.
After being governor for eight
years, running mate to Atiku in 2019, and his own man in 2023, Obi is qualified
for the number one spot. His prospects are brighter, in my view, than Atiku’s,
who is exhausted from chasing a marabout’s prophecy or Governor Rotimi
Amaechi’s, who is in this race to entertain.
A coalition to nowhere
The problem is that, for reasons
best known to him, instead of focusing on repairing the LP, broadening his base
and appeal, Obi has fallen for the seduction that his salvation lies with
joining Atiku, Amaechi, and former Governor Nasir El-Rufai in a coalition to
nowhere. I’m shocked.
Obi has forgotten what brought
him this far. It was certainly not the political dinosaurs he is now in love
with. Polls showed his strongest support was with women aged 18 and 24, who
comprised 82 percent of the cohort that voted for him. Others included the
largely urban middle class and social-savvy Nigerians, across regions and age
groups, apart from disaffected voters. Instead of cultivating and expanding his
hold on these demographics, he has been infected by the obsession that his
salvation is with the group he turned his back against.
In a political system that
requires the winner to secure no less than 25 percent of the votes in at least
two-thirds of all the states, Obi’s main challenge is bridging this divide,
especially across the North, where he is very weak. But his approach to solving
this problem is dangerously flawed.
Chasing a phantom
His misjudgment is that he needs
assistance from two prominent Northern politicians, Atiku, El-Rufai or any of
the vagrants from the legacy CPC. They cannot and will not help him because
their broken dreams have consumed them. NNPP leader Rabiu Kwankwaso might have
been, by far, a more valuable ally, but he will not accept a subordinate
role.
The obsession with relying on the
“tripod” or any single region, claiming that it’s the sole determinant of the
pathway to power, has been shattered more than once since 1999, with Obasanjo’s
election being one and Muhammadu Buhari’s another.
In what he has framed as possibly
his most consequential attempt at the presidency in 2027, it is tragic that Obi
either doesn’t believe or is too confused to give it a shot without using the
coattails of some exhausted Northern politicians.
Under the sheets
I know that politics indulges
strange bedfellows, even actively encouraging intimacy amongst them under the
sheets. Still, it came to me as a stunning surprise that Obi should so easily
find accommodation with El-Rufai, who has called him some of the most horrendous
names in the book, the most flattering of which was an ethnic bigot, a tyrant,
a joke and a Nollywood actor.
As for Amaechi, the man who
doesn’t like money except when it comes in the form of a Rolls-Royce, Obi
should know him better.
But these are Obi’s new friends
and associates – political wanderers, united mainly by ambition to seize power
and have it for themselves for its own sake. He’s perfectly entitled to his new
company, but I wish he would pause, reflect, and perhaps watch his back.
Trouble at home
In his south-east home base,
Anambra Governor Charles Soludo thinks he’s superior and that “Obidients” are a
nuisance. In Imo state, where Governor Hope Uzodinma thinks himself the only
highway to Abuja, the governor would mount a tollgate against any perceived
threat to his franchise. Of course, there’s no love lost between Obi and the
only LP, Governor Alex Otti of Abia state.
There’s nothing for him in any
coalition of the disaffected, and his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed said so
bluntly. To paraphrase him, a coalition with Atiku, el-Rufai, Amaechi, and
other internally displaced politicians is a coalition of the second fiddle.
As things stand, Obi is neither
here nor there. After being with Atiku all these years, and despite the wreckage
the former vice president made of the PDP, which is now survived only by his
ambition to become president, it’s surprising that Obi thinks that ADC or any
other coalition with Atiku will work for him.
Long memories
Politicians from the Southeast face
a double jeopardy of ruinously expensive election costs and, after the Civil
War, deep mistrust amongst the political elite, especially in the North.
Despite fervent claims of no victor, no vanquished, nothing is forgotten or
forgiven, and appeasement will fail.
Obi is with the wrong crowd, and
worst of all, faces a serious risk of losing his party’s support. He should
cultivate and use help wherever he can find it, but not at the expense of what
he has built, especially in the last two years. He is now doing precisely what
desperados do.
Except, of course, if he was
lying about not being desperate for power.
Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief
of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media
and Monetising It.
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