Peter Obi: Can this ‘rock’ break the jinx?

Peter Obi, a businessman, two-time governor of Anambra State and former vice presidential candidate, is touted as a ‘frugal spender’ who left ‘N75billion’ in the state’s purse while handing over to his successor, Willie Obiano, in 2014.

That Obi left N75bn in the state treasury while leaving government in Anambra has always been a subject of controversy, especially between him and his successor, Obiano.

In 2015, after the duo had fallen apart, Obiano dismissed Obi’s claims as “half-truths,” pointing out that his predecessor left the state with a huge debt burden of N106.2 billion when his tenure expired on March 17, 2014. He wondered how Obi could have given Anambra people a rosy picture of the assets he left behind without showing them the liabilities he incurred.

Obi’s performance touched on the education, health and business sectors with his open and accessible leadership style. His brand of politics endeared him to some young Nigerians who see him as “youthful” and a better alternative to the older generation of politicians vying for the presidency.

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Obi’s candidacy received a major boost on the first day of this year when former President Olusegun Obasanjo shut the door against hordes of politicians seeking his endorsement. Aside from the reelection of President Muhammadu Buhari, which Obasanjo hit a brick wall in 2019, all the presidential candidates the former president endorsed since 2007 when he left office have emerged victorious.

A Harvard-trained banker, Obi joined the presidential race on the platform of the Labour Party, gaining popularity within weeks. A strong case can be made that Obi has created a ‘third force’, a paradigm shift from the usual two-man horse race that Nigeria’s presidential elections had been known for.

Pundits say Obi, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are the three major contenders in the presidential race.

Of the trio, Obi, 61, is the youngest and most popular among the youth. Tinubu is 70, while Atiku is 75 years old. His supporters, nicknamed ‘Obidients’ are pushing for a new era; they have become a formidable political movement. They are very active on social media where they guide Obi jealously while lashing at his opponents.

A few months back, Tinubu confessed that he had stopped visiting social media because it gives him high blood pressure. “I don’t go to social media anymore because it gives me high blood pressure. They abuse the hell out of me,” he said in a video that went viral.

Beyond social media frenzy

The question is: Can Obi cause an upset in this year’s election? The last time LP had a governor in Nigeria was during the term of Olusegun Mimiko when he was elected the governor of Ondo State. After his re-election in 2012, Mimiko left the party.

It was Obi’s candidacy that brought the party “from the dead” into the limelight. However, Obi’s LP does not have such a great reach across all 36 states. The party had a terrible outing in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states. For instance, in Ogun State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said the LP did not submit candidates’ names for all the positions in the elections.

Analysts say although Obi had gained acceptance among many Nigerians, it would be difficult for him to win the polls due to a lack of a grassroots base and the reach of his political party. His opponents have constantly said he lacked the structure required to win, but Obi has dismissed such a narrative.

Dismantling the structure

At a campaign outing in Akwa Ibom last year, Obi said, “The structure they have today is what we want to dismantle. It is a structure of criminality. The structure produced 133 million people living in poverty, 20million out-of-school children and made Nigeria surpass India in infant mortality. It is the structure that destroys us; we want to destroy that structure.”

Obi-Datti’s 7-point agenda

In October, Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, released a seven-point manifesto for the 2023 electioneering. Tagged, ‘Our Pact with Nigeria,’ the 48-page policy document contains the Obi-Datti’s strategies for purposeful and participatory leadership for national rebirth based on seven governance priorities.

Insecurity

Obi, during an interview on Arise Television on October 24, 2022, disclosed that he would ‘decisively’ handle insecurity by ensuring that effective individuals are appointed to head the country’s security agencies. He disclosed that he would sack non-performing service chiefs if elected as president.

Asked how he would respond to the type of security alert raised by the United States on possible terror attacks in Nigeria, Obi said, “Even with a gun on my head, I can’t give you details of what I am going to do with the issue of insecurity. But I am going to be a commander-in-chief, so I will deal with it decisively. I can’t tell you how I am going to deal with it because if I tell you, it won’t work.”

Controversies

While he has not been accused of stealing money, he reportedly failed to declare offshore accounts and assets held by family members. In Paradise Papers, an investigation that saw 600 journalists from 150 news organisations around the world pouring through a trove of 11.9 million confidential files, Obi was listed among individuals with secret business dealings.

According to the documents, he clandestinely set up and operated businesses overseas, including in notorious tax and secrecy havens in ways that breached Nigerian laws. Obi reportedly named his first discreet company on the British Virgin Island Gabriella Investments Limited after his daughter. He was said to have first approached Acces International, a secrecy enabler in Monaco, France, to help him incorporate an offshore entity in one of the world’s most notorious tax havens. He has since denied these allegations. When the issue cropped up during an Arise TV programme where he was featured, Obi said, “I was the lone engineer of South African Breweries. The business I was working for before my brother took over and paid me off. The Next Cash and Carry you see in Port Harcourt and Abuja was founded by that firm. Before I became a governor, I served on the boards of three banks and was the chairman of another.”

Alleged bigotry, hatred for northerners

Obi was also accused of bigotry, hatred and maltreatment of northerners during his days as the governor of Anambra State. In a widely circulated article titled, “The insolence of Peter Obi against the North and Northerners part (1): A Personal Experience or Community’s Travails in the hand of a Tribal Bigot,” the writer, AG Mahmoud, claimed that Obi ordered the deportation of Northerners of different religions to their respective states.

But Obi dismissed the allegation of bigotry as false, describing it as a campaign of calumny. Obi’s refusal to criticise the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) makes him unpopular in the North, where there are huge votes. It is a fact that whoever wins the election must have received massive support from the North. Obi knows the importance of the region, hence his several trips there, but his stance on the IPOB, which has targeted northerners in its violent campaign, remains a baggage.

Asked a question on how he would tackle the uprising in the South East during an interview with Daily Trust, Obi said, “In our South East, it is a simple thing: I will dialogue, I will discuss, it is a democracy, and in a democracy you govern by consensus. If anybody says he is not happy, you call him and sit him down and discuss it with him. People agitate in my house – my wife, my children. If you say to me that you have lived with your wife all through and you people have never quarreled, then you are not married. You disagree and settle it, that is agitation.”

While featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Obi faulted the government’s designation of the IPOB as a terrorists’ organisation.“The only thing I disagree with is naming IPOB terrorists. They are not terrorists. Those who took the decision may have information that I don’t have. I live in Onitsha, and I can tell you that they are not terrorists. They (IPOB members) are people I pass on the road every time, every day,” he said.

Serial defection

During the flag-off of Obi’s governorship reelection campaign in 2009, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leader, asked Anambra people to grant him his last wish.

“I urge you all who are my friends and sons to come out en masse and vote for my political son, Obi. Let it be the only thing I am asking you to do for me,” Ojukwu, who died two years after said.

In what some described as a shock, Obi defected to the PDP three years after Ojukwu’s death. He later emerged as the running mate to Atiku in 2019. In 2022, he obtained the PDP presidential form and campaigned until a few days before the primaries when he dumped the party for his current party. In all, Obi has changed parties four times since 2002.

Critics have ruled out Obi from the race described as a straight fight between Tinubu and Atiku. In a letter in November, Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra dealt a heavy blow to Obi’s ambition, which he likened to a child’s play.

He said Obi was making it easy for Tinubu to emerge as president as votes that should ordinarily go the way of Atiku would be wasted on him. Before his letter, Soludo shot down one of what Obi used as his selling point.

The Labour Party presidential candidate never hesitates to blow his trumpet once the opportunity arises. He had severally told his campaign audience how his investments were yielding fruits. But when he appeared on a television programme, Soludo said those investments were worth next to nothing.

“By the way, I don’t know anything about the investment that you are talking about. I think there was something I read about somebody speculating about whatever investment. With what I have seen today, the value of those investments is worth next to nothing. So, let’s leave that aside,” Soludo said.

Prince Arthur Eze, an Anambra-born billionaire, is among those who believe Obi stands no chance in the election. During the 2022 Ofala festival of his brother, Igwe Robert Eze, who is the traditional ruler of the Ukpo kingdom, Eze said, “I warned Peter Obi to withdraw from this race but he would not listen. I told him plainly that I was not part of his plans. I told him to drop his ambition and wait for next time. When he told me about his ambition, I asked him the states he thought he could win in the West and the North – he told me – but I was not convinced. I told him that he could not win so that he would not waste his time and money.”

But Valentine Obienyem, media adviser to Obi, believes that the chances of his principal are very bright because the masses are with him. In an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday, he said the signs were very clear that the Labour Party presidential standard bearer was coasting to victory.

“It is clear that the entire Nigeria wants him. That is the parameter we used to measure. The people want him. We are confident that he would be elected.

“Peter Obi is a man who is consistent. The Peter Obi you see in the morning is the Peter Obi at noon, even at night. What you observe about him is that he doesn’t change. The things I noticed when I started working with him as governor are still there. He is constant,” he stated.

Obiyenem reinstated that one of the strong points of Obi is the mass appeal he enjoys. Asked if he was not bothered about the burden of expectation, he said Obi was fully prepared for the job and would hit the ground running.

Like Obiyenem, Austin Aigbe, an Election Analyst and Ford Fellow, believes Peter Obi has a huge chance to win the election.

According to him, having been seen as someone who is not corrupt as evidence in his administration as the Anambra State governor.

“He has an edge on war against corruption. So, he is seen as an anti-corruption leader who till date did not collect monies from his state after being a governor, unlike his counterparts, who amended the rules to begin to collect severance benefits and all that. This gives him an edge.
“Also, he didn’t belong to a party seen to have ruled before. So, his movements are ordinarily Nigerians who are looking for change.

“Though he may not get all the votes in the north, he would largely clear the south. May be he may not entirely win in south west, due to one of the candidates coming from there, he is sure of getting 25 percent from all the 17 southern states.
“In the north, he would push very hard in many states. Above all the electoral law has been improved and the naira re-design to stop money politics, according to Mr. President,” Aigbe said.

He said the BVAS being a game changer give Obi a very big chance to win the election.

An award-winning novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, has also thrown her weight behind Obi’s presidential ambition, saying he would make a good president.

“The basis of my support for Peter Obi is because I think he would make a very good president. I think it is unfortunate that we often turn our opponents into caricatures; and I don’t think that is necessary. What is important to think about is not how we can demonise the opponent, but rather, who is the best. Peter Obi is by far the best,” she said.

Childhood friends

In interviews with BBC Igbo, Peter Obi’s childhood friends and classmates revealed the kind of person he was to them during their stay together. Benjamin Uba and Boniface Anedum said Obi was popularly known as “The Strong Man.” Anedum said Obi was a very nice boy. He said that after every class, the teacher would request water to wash his hands because of the stain from the chalk he used to teach the class and the class would look for a way to find water for the teacher. He said that later, Obi brought up an idea. He reportedly told the class to contribute money and give it to him, that he would be fetching the water every day. He said if they could raise the money, he would start immediately. Another classmate said Obi was a hardworking boy, even after they departed for different secondary schools. He had a leadership spirit in him but he hardly gave out money anyhow and did not spend recklessly.

“Even if you wanted to do something with him he would ask you how productive that thing was before he would join you to do it,” he said.

Obi, who was born in Onitsha, Anambra, was nicknamed “Okwute,” meaning rock. Can this rock withstand the rigour of Nigeria’s politics at the highest level? February 25 will tell.