Yes! They’ve said everything about Peter Obi. They say he’s not God. They called him a political opportunist. They mocked his pledge to make Nigeria a producer. They dismissed his figures on foreign accomplishments that might be emulated at home. The slanderers ignored reality. Their harangued subject never claimed deity. He didn’t halo sacredness. He didn’t claim greater humanity than politicians. He merely wanted to revive a sleepy nation.
Like all humans, people who read newspapers and look up know that Peter Obi has flaws. He carved his self-definition, “I am a trader,” into the public psyche. A trader-politician gem: Who would lose their automobile and let the thief keep it since it was well-maintained?
This post is about stopping thieves and ending impunity. Therefore, readers who like their property to be neat should stop reading.
The stolen car and home are now subtle examples of curbing wantonness. May 5, 2023, newspaper story: ICEA reported 137 deaths and 57 abductions during the 2023 general elections. “Ethnic Profiling, Hate Speech, and Endemic Violence: A Preliminary Post-Election Statement on the 2023 General Elections in Nigeria,” obtained by Saturday Vanguard in Abuja, stated that the most prominent atrocities during the electioneering process were the weaponization of voter suppression through violence, hate speech, fake news, and ethnic bigotry.
Rewrite the modest stories. Crown princes marry princesses. During the ceremony, a robber with a sword and bludgeon-wielding mercenaries rush the public plaza. The king’s head is detached. The crown prince’s gory entrails fly everywhere. Bandits kidnap future spouses. Pain and chaos rule. The bandit returns with his abductee and kid a season later, seizing the community’s kingdom. Unless afflicted by bastardy, which Nigerian community would lionize the homicidal criminal because a bouncy baby boy was born from their violation?
Peter Obi intervened after this incident. Like the walkway tree, he indicates considerable buffeting and hammering. He was cursed and slandered. One online troll dubbed him an infidel. He’s unharmed. He wears the breastplate of truth and the belt of righteousness, having overcome fear. Why should interlopers reject a normal society’s democratic choice of an “infidel” leader? Wasn’t a comparable fury behind Nigeria’s June 12 crisis?
Doesn’t it seem odd that a guy so reviled for defending the people has never retaliated? When Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim promoted Politics Without Bitterness, Peter Obi was a teenager. He represents that creed now. He believes in democracy’s ballot box. He always went to the courts to fix political wrongs. Knowing he’s never alone, he behaves boldly.
Some theories fit. Nigeria’s unsolvable problems were recognized. Achebe touched it. “The difficulty with Nigeria is simply and squarely a lack of leadership,” he said in The Trouble With Nigeria (Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, Enugu, 1983). Nigeria’s climate, water, air, and land are fine. The Nigerian issue is leaders’ reluctance or inability to take responsibility and lead by example.
Professor Claude Ake, a prominent political scientist, responded to Achebe’s argument a year before his mysterious 1996 aircraft accident by arguing that followership was equally to blame for national failure. He believed selfless and imaginative leadership was pointless if followership was docile.
Achebe and Ake argued from opposite sides. Critically, their hypotheses match. Leadership is only confusing when seen through political power. Except impliedly, Achebe didn’t blame Nigeria’s problems on political leadership. Ake’s Lance didn’t create a gap in the leader-follower relationship. Leadership is neither political nor specific. Leadership is pyramidal. Yet, it flourishes at political, economic, regional, religious, domestic, and other levels.
School principals are followers of the education minister. His college principal leads. Building site carpenters accompany foremen. He should lead at home as the breadwinner. The headmaster rules over the prefect and her students. She leads her peers. Professors Achebe and Ake’s ideas belong in this categorization of varied leadership levels. The crucial issue is: How good is your leadership?
The Obedient Movement emerged at that point because it championed political morality above class, ethnicity, and religious parochialism. Obidients lead wherever they are. They registered voters and urged others to do likewise, understanding their civic duties. They hated violence. They voted despite harassment, intimidation, violence, and INEC’s perversity. “The dog and the monkey should all be bathed in blood” was disdained when election results raised eyebrows. They accepted “go to court.” New Nigeria.
Life is such that Nigeria’s redemptive movement’s namesake is irrelevant. If Peter Obi had run for president under a banner other than the Labour Party’s, the movement symbolically centered on him would not have formed. It was simple. The oppressed majority saw the contrast between cosy and dank and likened him to Nigeria’s tainted food. They chose well. Peter Obi has performed well.
INEC excelled at crushing failures. A whimsical puppeteer flexed the “independent” electoral body. It shut down BVAS and IREV, blaming “glitches” for election day travesties. INEC announced a president-elect with 33% of the votes. INEC has rebuffed all requests to provide its presidential ballot indexing numbers. INEC unconstitutionally proclaimed a president-elect who failed to get 25% of Abuja votes.
If a lame-duck President of animus, prejudice, and hypocrisy appoints a successor by executive fiat, the Obedient Movement is not required to accept it. The Obidients sued over the outcry under Peter Obi. The courtroom’s gale-force winds revealed the chicken’s unpleasant posterior. The Judiciary, the Third Estate of the Realm, and the ordinary man’s last chance wear a devilish mask, so suspicions linger. The Bench makes scandalous rulings.
A senator became president. He vomited and won a Senate contest in which he wasn’t a candidate. Keep it, the Supreme Court said! Before that, a fourth-place finisher in a gubernatorial race received no medal. The Supreme Court declared him the first to breast the tape! An 83-year-old Senator was admitted to the parliamentary chamber for influencing his 73-year-old wife and Appeal Court president into perverting rulings to favour his legislative colleagues and revealing judicial corruption. These days! These offenses contradict obedient psychology. That’s why Deceit’s supporters are tilling undesignated lands. Even though Dishonesty pounded the ground with mesmerizing callisthenics to embarrass Olympic veterans, they owe society: to leave an undeserved stage.
Luckily, Obidients are reassured that denying US visas is the least reprisal for those who use the Bench as a sledgehammer to smash 200 million lives. Revenge will be white-hot pincers ripping tonsils from their descendants’ bones. The days of impunity when the Court, incited by antics, declared black, white are over. The Obedient Movement—their hubris—is not a political party. It favours Nigeria inexorably. Its unwavering partisanship benefits the country. The nation’s fresh momentum.
Argument resumes. Peter Obi isn’t a god. If divine, worshippers would crowd his altar. He’s flawed. But the Obedient Movement won’t tolerate intentional mistakes. Peter Obi, an esteemed businessman who might become a philosopher-king, holds a University of Nigeria, Nsukka Philosophy degree, unlike “graduates” without diplomas. He changed Nigeria’s political landscape. Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi (CON) turns 62 today. Greetings to him. The High and Lofty, the Eternal and Omnipotent Highness, should bless him and cure the country.
