Nigerian politicians thrive in chaos and take pleasure in gaining the unfair advantage. They would sooner violate extant conventions, regulations and laws that guide electoral contests than abide by them. There’s hardly any aspect of Nigeria’s electoral practice that is not spelt out in the guidelines provided by the Independent National Electoral Commission and these guidelines are often rigidly enforced. The Commission has, however, been known to tinker with the guidelines when occasion demands, as with the order of elections for example. The 2023 general election was one of the few in which the body in charge of the election changed the electoral order, with the presidential election being held in February and the governorship election in March.
There was no break as such between the time the 2023 presidential election was held and the beginning, unofficially, of campaign for the 2027 election. Opposition parties, especially followers of Peter Obi of the Labour Party, called for the ouster of Bola Tinubu after the 2023 election. They brazenly invited the military, and when that failed, they joined Atiku Abubakar to contest the outcome of the election up to the Supreme Court. They promoted street protests and work boycotts in 2024. By the beginning of 2025 it was evident that the opposition politicians were determined not to abide by the electoral timetable or calendar. They were effectively in campaign mood and started campaigning in earnest.
Disaffected members of the ruling party that were either still in the party or had left to nurse their wounds started crawling out of hibernation to register their presence on the national stage. Here belong the likes of Nasir el-Rufai who came out earlier in the year threatening fire and brimstone and promising, in a fit of anger, to achieve what he could not do even as a sitting governor – win the presidential election for his new comrades in the opposition by sending the incumbent president back home to Lagos. After stumbling in the dark and plunging into the rabbit hole of a failed takeover of the Social Democratic Party, he has finally berthed with others under the halo of the African Democratic Congress. But all the while Peter Obi, who his supporters like to think is the most popular political figure in the country and the nightmare of the ruling party, has been engaged in both subtle and not-so-subtle campaign for 2027.
Even though he has been politically destitute and without a party for about a year now, Peter Obi has been the political lone wolf on a one-man campaign mission to be the president in 2027. This, ahead of INEC’s declaration for the commencement of campaign. Obi joined others and they took their campaign for 2027 a notch or two higher as they conducted a palace coup of sorts with their friendly takeover of the ADC under a so-called coalition arrangement. The frenzy of their campaign which they mistook for national support is beginning to cool off but not before they had succeeded in drawing the ruling party into joining the political fray for vote. It is getting clear to all that the move into the ADC is a camouflage for the promotion of the ambition of one man, a perennial presidential contestant that is again poised to do his thing: Atiku Abubakar. Peter Obi is again politically homeless. But he has not stopped infiltrating ‘enemy’ camps, going into their backyards to campaign for 2027.
In the name of philanthropy, Obi has for many months been making his way into communities across his opponents’ enclaves where he makes donations in kind and cash and rallies potential voters in some of their most vulnerable moments. Some are in IDP camps they had been sent by terrorists nicknamed herders, bandits and insurgents. They are writhing in pain due to the loss of loved ones, body parts, property, their ancestral land and communities floating under flood waters. Some are in hospitals or students, undergraduates and others, at loggerheads with constituted authorities and other officials. Peter Obi jumps chochocho into their affairs from Okoh, Nsukka to Calabar. These are the sets of people he visits in political campaigns and rallies disguised as philanthropic events in which-wait for this-he tells his audience that they are in the situation they’ve found themselves because of poor leadership, by which he means either their state government (their governor) or the Federal Government (Tinubu or any of his ministers). In this way he makes his pitch, offers himself for the presidency and signs off in his typical way—‘another future is POssible’.
Given the manner and frequency of their occurrence, these events are at best political campaigns. At worst, they are a form of incitement to civil disobedience, the same failed approach that Obi has been stylishly encouraging among his supporters since February 2023. His opponents in other parties are seeing through this and are beginning to challenge him even where some of them may be doing this the wrong way or are unable to properly articulate their observation. We saw this when Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State stopped Obi from visiting an IDP camp in his state. The same thing led apparently to the outburst that saw Monday Okpebholo demanding prior notice from Obi before he visits Edo State. The issue is not merely about the right of a citizen to visit any part of the country. Obi like any other Nigerian does not require the permission of anyone to visit any part of the country.
The question is about Obi travelling to sensitive places like IDP camps, university campuses or villages to engage in political campaigns. Politicians who understand what those frequent trips are about are not fooled. The anxiety in the camps of Obi’s opponents in the APC and PDP is about him not keeping to electoral rules and the timetable concerning political campaigns. Consider the manner his supporters in Kaduna State decided to mark his 64th birthday with a rally on a day political parties had their primaries. What’s that about? Who holds rallies in order to donate money or food? Is that the modus operandi of a philanthropist or a politician?
What does Obi and his supporters think would happen should every politician choose to mark their birthdays or charitable activities with political rallies and campaigns? Let nobody court controversy for the sake of political relevance or publicity. Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and other opposition figures may think the President enjoys some advantages that give him political mileage when he executes certain activities in the line of his duty. An example is the funeral of Muhammadu Buhari. But that is his privilege as president. They cannot as opposition figures assume they could set up parallel structures that challenge or parody civil authority or presidential power.
The post Peter Obi and his kurukere moves, by Rotimi Fasan appeared first on Vanguard News.
