By AMOS ESELE, with contributions from Ukandi Odey, Udeme Utip, chukwuma odu and david owei
June 26, (THEWILL) – When officials of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Labour Party (LP) get to meet during the week in a place yet to be conveyed to officials across the country, they may take some time to feel the impact of the good fortune that the trending ‘Obidient Movement’ has thrown the way of the once virtually non-existent party, since the defection of Dr Olusegun Mimiko, the first governor on the platform of the party for two terms, in 2017 to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The ‘Obidient’ Movement, named after the presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi, is the ongoing youth-driven group that is determined to leverage the polish public image of the former Governor of Anambra State, to create a third alternative in the 2023 general poll to the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition PDP, perceived to have brought governance to its poorest state in Nigeria since the return of civil rule in 1999.
The PDP governed the country for 16 of those preceding 23 years, while the APC has held forte for seven years since 2015.
“We have to create the platform for the next President of Nigeria, using the Labour Party,” a clearly happy Chairman of the party in Kwara State, Chief Kehinde Rotimi, told THEWILL at the weekend.
“Campaign has not started yet, but the overwhelming support we are getting from many support groups and coalitions, such as Take Nigeria Back, Obi Coalition, Nigeria Youth Council, cultural and Diaspora groups, name them, has been encouraging. That is why the national exco is scheduling a meeting next week, though we are yet to be told the place and date.”
Although the party has been meeting online since the emergence of Obi as its presidential candidate at a convention held in Asaba in June, its first NEC meeting in a long time next week will afford officials the chance to develop a programmatic way forward, according to the Chairman of the party in Edo State, Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi, in a brief interview with this newspaper on Friday.
All because of the ‘Obidient ‘Movement anchored on the personality of the former Anambra State governor, whose frugality, recognised above average performance as governor and believable promises to do as he says, is igniting the imagination of many Nigerians desirous of good governance come 2023. The last minute rush to register for the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) as a means of carrying out their ‘revolution’ in 2023, is believed to be part of this drive.
Although the details of the ‘programmatic way’, forward before the LP’s NWC this week could not be obtained as National Chairman, Julius Abure, was unreachable after repeated attempts, there is no doubt that certain forces are turning the wheel of fortune in favour of the party through the Obidient Movement. The forces, investigation show, are variable and uncertain and have to be taken with dedication and focus.
FORCES IN FAVOUR OF THE ‘OBIDIENT’ MOVEMENT
The fall-out from the recent outings of the two major parties has polarised the polity to the advantage of the LP as an alternative platform for the electorate.
Investigation shows that many Nigerians who looked up to the major parties to assuage pervading feelings of marginalisation, threat to national cohesion by insecurity and lack of public welfare felt betrayed by the failure of the major political parties to respect their zoning arrangement for power shift from the North to the South for the PDP, respect religious belief as seen by the daring move by the APC to pair Muslim-Muslim presidential and vice-presidential candidates, coupled with the manner in which their conventions were conducted whereby monetary inducement largely influenced the outcomes for their candidates.
Angered and frustrated by these moves, discerning Nigerians are searching for alternatives to take their pound of flesh on the APC and PDP.
Prof Yakubu Ochefu, an economic historian and secretary of the Vice Chancellors’ Committee of Nigerian Universities, thinks the situation contains three tendencies that are making the ‘Obidient Movement’ gain traction across the country.
These three trends, according to him, are the internal crisis generated within the APC and PDP, following the fall-out of their zoning agenda; the readiness of the LP strategist to take up the goodwill of the youths flocking to it and many Nigerians yearning for real change, as well as the pending alliance between LP and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNP).
“For the APC, the cabal that was defeated in the struggle to anoint a consensus candidate leading to the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as presidential candidate are pushing for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. If they succeed, they will alienate the largely Christian North-Central geo-political zone, which was once a stronghold of the PDP until APC took over in the zone 2015 and 2019.
“Also, recall the recent threat by many Senators to defect from the party in protest of what they termed lack of internal democracy in the party. If the defection materialises, it may do a lot of damage to the party in the North West, particularly in Kano and Kaduna where a larger portion of their votes come from.
“The PDP, on the other hand, is still reeling from the zonal arrangement that produced Atiku Abubakar and the choice of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa over Governor Nyeson Wike of Rivers State, who emerged second at the convention and as everybody knows, had been supporting the party since 2015. With the choice of his Delta State counterpart as VP, Wike is in a revenge mode, judging by his body language. Nobody can tell how far Wike can continue to be loyal to the party.
“So the PDP has a lot of pacification to do in the South-South and South-East, in particular, where feelings of being cheated out of the zonal arrangement for the presidency are still high. Then, any candidate who goes about saying he wants to continue where the previous administrations stopped or who has nothing fresh to offer the electorate during electioneering would find it hard to convince Nigerians against preferring a candidate, who says ‘I have done it all my life, I can do it.’ These are the contradictions facing the major parties and working in favour of the ‘Obidient’ Movement. This is the first time that a third option is resonating across Nigeria,” Ochefu said.
TEST OF STRENGTH AMONG APC, PDP, LP/‘OBIDIENT MOVEMENT
Although the movement has brought a new trend into the polity, such as volunteerism, with many young men and women working without consideration of pay, the truth still remains that much more work still needs to be done. How far the youths can go in sacrificing their time will also depend on some winning strategy by a party organ.
Against an old party like the PDP that has wider reach and membership spread across many groups, such as state governors (13), Senators (46), Representatives (128), House of Assembly members, Chairpersons of local government areas, youths and women wings dying to come back to power and its perquisites and a governing APC with 66 Senators, 236 Representatives, 22 Governors, many LGA chairpersons and Assembly lawmakers, the Movement may fizzle out if no workable strategy exists to give a sense of direction towards the ultimate prize.
“There is no doubt that the Movement needs strategists to coordinate the goodwill of the youths. We have never seen this kind of volunteerism in our polity before being provided by the youths. In fact, the LP wil need foot soldiers who will man the polling units during election or they may be outdone by the big parties,” Ochefu added.
The need for a winning strategy and proper coordination in the Movement cannot be over emphasised. THEWILL recalls that only last week, the Vice Presidential candidate of the LP, Doyin Okupe, had to warn youths against peddling fake news on social media, where a large amount of mobilisation is being done by the Movement. It turned out that tweets claiming that the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Said II, had promised to mobilise five million Muslims for Obi was fake, just like a promotional message supposedly written by former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in support of Obi.”
Contacts with Okupe proved unsuccessful as he refused to answer repeated calls to his phone and respond to messages sent to his WhatsAPP handle. So too did the National Chairman, Julius Abure and Peter Obi.
NEGOTIATION FOR ALLIANCE BETWEEN LP AND NNPP
The ongoing alliance talks with the NNPP led by its presidential candidate and former Kano Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, is one of the best strategies Obi can swing for LP and the Movement to extend its reach beyond the many southern states where it is currently more active and poses a big threat to the APC and PDP.
For Senator Kwankwaso, whose Kwankwasiyya Movement has grown in strength with the arrival of some members of the National Assembly, the North-West may be up for grabs, in addition to Kano and Jigawa States where it is currently making waves. Five state governors in the huge vote catching North-West, except Zamfara, are on their way out after their mandatory two terms and so they may be unable to actively wage a fight against the populism of the Kwakwansiyya.
An alliance between NNPP and LP would strengthen Obi’s structure. But none of them, Obi and Kwankwaso, appears willing to stand down for the other as vice presidential candidate.
THEWILL investigation shows that should Kwanwaso find the alliance workable, he may ask somebody much younger than him from the Kwankwasiyya Movement to become VP to Obi.
THE ‘OBIDIENT’ MOVEMENT ACROSS THE STATES
Although it is highly active on social media, the movement is gradually creeping into the states across the country. In Plateau, Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Imo, and Rivers states street marches are ongoing by ‘Obidient’ youths with many households catching the fever of the new development. In Edo, for instance, where the ruling PDP is still mending its crisis, Governor Godwin Obaseki had to warn the members of the party to sit up and wake up to the new challenge in town posed by the Movement to the big political parties in the forthcoming general election.
In Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State, residents woke up sometime last week to hear on radio that Mrs Janet Mbang, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Udom Emmanuel, had resigned her position to join the ‘Obidient’ Movement.
In Plateau State, the general feeling is that an Obi would do things differently from the APC and PDP.
People are recruiting people in the state, according to findings by our correspondent. The general impression is that even if Obi does not win the presidency, he will be able to meet the required two-thirds majority to satisfy followers’ “desire to teach the APC and PDP a lesson… “ and that he made the desired impact. Youths and older persons think the current leadership of the country has not performed well. They also frown at what many call “a Muslim wanting to hand over to another Muslim.”
Generally, in the South-East, according to investigation, the movement is driven by a combination of political and ethnic factors: The thinking that Igbo aspiration for the presidency in 2023 was shortchanged by the PDP and APC and the fact that Obi, though Igbo, represents the South-East’s aspiration for the presidency. Obi’s personality rather than the LP is the main selling point used by the youth in their door-to-door campaign to mobilise the grassroots.
ANY CHANCES OF WINNING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?
Reacting to Obi and the ‘Obidient Movement’ phenomena, a PDP top source who claims to have advised Obi to rethink his defection from the party, said the Movement is driven by anger, which is “normal under the situation in the country, but, I bet you, it will fizzle out when the campaign starts. That is when all the power play at work would begin. The North where the real battle for huge votes resides thinks in terms of culture more than the South-East where Obi may end up being a spoiler. Obi will make some impact, no doubt, but he will not win the presidency, not even come third.”
Prof Ochefu is more cautious in his prediction.“If the big parties fail to resolve their internal contractions I pointed out earlier and Obi is able to strike an alliance with NNPP, he may likely win or at worse, end up in the second position. The level of disenchantment in the country is so high that nobody is going to listen to being told the same old story, such as saying ‘We are going to continue with the good work of our party’,” he said.
A senior journalist heading a regional paper in the South-East told THEWILL that though he would be happy to see Obi win the presidency, he thinks unresolved historical forces weigh heavily against him.
He said: “Obi has the diplomacy of Zik, (Nnamdi Azikiwe, statesman and first republic president), the courage of Ojukwu, (Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafra- civil war leader) and decency of Ekwueme (Alex Ekwueme, second republic VP). But politically he does not possess their tentacles. When I tell my people these things they shout me down and say what is structure. But I remind them that we are not in Europe, America where social media is the in-thing.
“They do not want to listen to any contrary view. They say we should try. Zik tried, Ojukwu tried, Ekwueme tried and they all failed. Those forces responsible for their failure are still around. This movement is driven by anger and frustration and when you are angry, you make mistakes. In 2015 and 2019 there were three parties in contest here; PDP, APC and APGA. Now we are going to have four with LP. That means Igbo votes will be further divided. How popular is the Obi Movement Up North?”
In a recent BBC Pidgin interview, Obi gave his growing supporters the assurance that he would win the presidential election, adding that his structure are the millions of Nigerians who live in poverty.
“Whenever I hear of NO STRUCTURE, my ansa dey simple; di 100 million Nigerians wey dey live in poverty go be di structure,” he said, in Pidgin English.
Election Day (February 25, 2023) is eight months away, a long time in politics and power game for anything to happen in an uncertain and poor Nigeria. A sufficient time frame for the ‘Obidient Movement’ to test its acceptance and shock the APC and PDP at the poll.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
