By S.A. Aina
In the last week, I’ve seen and watched the supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the just concluded general election that took place on the 25th of February, 2023, popularly known as the ‘Obidients’ come out and claim that Peter Obi won the presidential election. In my entire life, I’ve never seen a situation where the contestant who came third in a competition claimed to be the winner! The Obidients Movement has set the pace!
However, I’m not surprised by the emotive vituperations and hue and cry coming from the Obidients’ camp after the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) as the president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, alleging electoral rigging and all that. It’s worthy of note that the Obidients Movement was birthed by some factors.
First, the movement was already brewing on Twitter space as a result of the EndSARS saga which claimed many lives in Lagos. The Buhari-led Federal Government was/is still not listening to the cries of the youth about police brutality, especially at the hand of the now-disbanded unit called Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
The youth wanted a change in leadership; they wanted a leadership that would honestly address their many concerns; they wanted to make a loud statement and change the status quo since the Buhari-led APC government has disappointed them – the disappointment that reached a crescendo at Lekki Tollgate, Lagos, between 8 Oct 2020 and 20 Oct 2020. So, when Peter Obi (PO) defected to Labour Party (LP) from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), he endeared himself to the youth by appealing to their conscience with his simplicity, and many of them pitched their tent in his camp, and then the EndSARS movement metamorphosed into Obidient Movement. And PO won the election in Lagos!
The second sentiment that characterizes the Obidients Movement is religion. Much as some may like to deny this fact, it’s our existential reality in Nigeria. Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and many churches played a significant role before and during the election on the 25th of February! And they are still playing the same role currently. They have been playing this unfortunate role since the emergence of Kashim Shetima as BAT’s vice presidential candidate.
Muslim-Muslim ticket is a war against Christianity, they said, forgetting that it was purely a political calculation from BAT’s end. Many pastors centered their sermons on the battle between ‘Darkness’ (Islam) which BAT or Atiku Abubakar (AA) represents and the ‘Light’ (Christianity) which PO represents. They have brainwashed their members with the Islamisation of Nigeria narrative and all the Christian faithful must stop it by all means in the interest of the church! Almost all the churches – in the east, west, and north campaigned vigorously for PO to emerge as Nigeria’s next president, and they all voted for him. And PO won the election in northern states dominated by Christians!
The third sentiment which characterizes the Obidients Movement is a tribe. PO is an Igbo man and his candidacy is seen as an opportunity for someone of Igbo extraction to become Nigerian president. And that is why the majority of PO’s supporters are Igbos. Although the Obidients have tried to deny this obvious reality and premised their choice of PO on ‘competence’, ‘bestness’, ‘incorruptibleness’, and ‘youthfulness’! If we are to objectively interrogate all these qualities vis à vis their preferred candidate, we may argue against PO being more competent than BAT or AA, or most other presidential candidates.
We may also argue that PO is not the best among them when it comes to being full of bright ideas that can propel Nigeria to greater heights. Prince Adebayo of SDP and Omoyele Sowore of AAC are full of beautiful ideas! As far as Nigerian politics is concerned, no politician is incorruptible! Their levels of corruption may differ.
So, PO is not a saint! The Obidients and Igbos have also made us believe that, at 62, PO is more youthful than Omoyele Sowore and Dumebi Kachukwu who are 52 and 48 years old respectively! The presidential results in the southeast and Igbo-dominated areas across the country, especially in Lagos have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that PO is an Igbo candidate!
This is not to say that non-Igbos did not vote for him; in fact, the Yorubas spread their votes across all the major political parties. The non-Igbo youths in Lagos who had been victims of SARS and witnessed the Federal Government’s insensitive handling of the EndSARS saga also blessed PO with their votes. And PO also won the election in the east!
Another sentiment that brewed the Obidients Movement in the build-up to the general election was caused by several prophecies, predictions, and online opinion polls, all of which had predicted a landslide victory for PO over BAT and AA. In fact, some pastors publicly declared that Nigeria would break up if PO did not win the election, and also stated emphatically that the name of the next president was boldly written in the Bible.
Similarly, several online opinion polls did not give both BAT and AA any chance of winning at all! Thus, in Obidients’ heads, Obi had won the election before February 25th, and they cannot come to terms with the fact that he actually lost! The truth of the matter is that the Obidients own the social media space!
Mind you, I’m also active on social media but I never once participated in any of those opinion polls. My sisters and brothers including my mother never participated in the polls, yet we all cast our votes for BAT! The same could also be said about many other families who voted for BAT across the country. But because the Obidients own the social media space, they falsely believed that all the Nigerian youth voted for PO and hated BAT!
However, that all the support and goodwill PO enjoyed in the south and among the Christian faithful in the country may not translate into becoming Nigerian president in the general election is an anathema to the Obidients Movement, and that in itself is a dangerous trend we all must be circumspect about. That PO must become Nigeria’s president, by all means, is a joke taken too far! Various blasphemous posts and videos made by some Obidients after the last Saturday’s election are evidence that many of them are seriously sick upstairs! Some had sworn by the graves of their ancestors that BAT can never become Nigerian president, that he can never become their president.
Some had vowed to relocate to another country if BAT became Nigerian president! Some are even blaming him for unemployment, blackout, insecurity, bad roads and what have you across the country! This is a man who was just a Governor in Lagos from 1999 to 2007. One would begin to wonder where all this hate is coming from! Therefore, the Obidients Movement is gradually transmogrifying into some psychic state and a disease called ‘Obimania’ and ‘Obidientitis’.
Obimania is a psychological condition that makes the Obidients show too much interest in and enthusiasm for Peter Obi such that anyone who disagrees with them becomes an enemy of the nation. It also means believing that Peter Obi is the only solution to Nigeria’s problems or that Peter Obi is God sent to deliver the Obidients from satanic shackles. By extension, Obimania also refers to the false belief that all Nigerian youth belong to Obidients Movement. On the other hand, Obidientitis is the feeling of sickness, disappointment, or depression experienced by the Obidients when Obi lost the presidential election.
When people are suffering from Obimania and Obidientitis, it would be difficult for them to accept defeat, and that explains the irrational actions and reactions of the Obidients after INEC declared BAT as the president-elect. They fail to understand the political dynamics of a country like Nigeria. They fail to understand that sectional and sectarian love cannot win a presidential election in a country as complex as Nigeria.
They fail to understand that to become Nigeria’s president, the candidates must reach out to people from other faiths faithfully! Although most Nigerians might be angry with the Buhari-led APC government for some of its anti-masses policies in the last seven years, BAT is a political heavy weight with massive supporters who still believe in his leadership acumen across the country. He had been building bridges across the length and breadth of Nigeria long before the election and it’s a fallacy to believe that Buhari rigged the election for him knowing Buhari’s various moves to reduce BAT’s chances of winning prior to the election.
When President Buhari vowed that he would make the general elections free, fair, and credible through his cash-crunch policy that has affected and still affecting the poor masses, many opposition party supporters including PO applauded the move, which they also used to campaign against BAT and APC government anyway.
But BAT spoke against the policy, especially because it was/is really affecting the masses and paralyzing the economy. He felt the timing of the policy was bad for a party seeking re-election! But Buhari was adamant and the opposition rejoiced, thinking that BAT could only win an election through vote buying.
Determined and undeterred, BAT campaigned across the length and breadth of the country even more than the so-called agile, youthful, and healthier candidates, promising the suffering masses that he would reverse the policy if elected president. Alas! This man won the election with the highest number of votes cast as well as 25 percent requirements by the constitution in 24 states, and you are all crying ‘rigging’, ‘rigging’! I even read it somewhere that Dino Melaye, the spokesperson for PDP, claimed that the cash policy was actually a ploy by president Buhari to rig the election for BAT. Common, stop kidding! We are all in this country and we know what’s happening.
In conclusion, the presidential election has been won and lost, and anyone who felt it was rigged in favour of BAT should approach the election tribunal rather than heat up the polity by playing to the gallery calling Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu unprintable names, and telling lies to the international community about the conduct of the election.
Yes, we are all agreed that INEC did not live up to the expectations, especially for its failure to transmit the results electronically from the polling units as promised, we must accept the fact that the election was not as bad as the Obidients have made the world believe. They are angry because their saviour lost contrary to what their prophets of doom had prophesied. Perhaps INEC’s refusal to transmit the results was expedient since the information had gone around that some unauthorized elements had had access to the INEC server to manipulate the figures to favour their candidate.
Protest by anybody cannot change the result; only the court can! So, the unity of Nigeria and the collective interest supersede the individual interest. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
