With two out of three opinion polls in his favour and his ‘million- man march’ waxing in strength and spreading across over four of six geo-political zones in the country currently, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, can be said to be the candidate to beat in the forthcoming general election scheduled for February 25, 2023.
In the month of September, two opinion polls commissioned by Atedo N.A Peterside Foundation (ANAP) and another by Bloomberg predicted victory for Obi in the 2023 presidential election. While NOI polls, which sampled prevailing opinions, gave Obi 18 per cent and 13 per cent apiece to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his All Progressives Congress (APC), Ahmed Tinubu 13 per cent each and 3 per cent to the candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso. Bloomberg’s poll raised the figure to 72 per cent for Obi, 16 per cent for Tinubu and 9 per cent for Atiku.
In early October, however, the Economist Intelligence Unit returned verdict for Tinubu, arguing that the Wike vs Atiku crisis in PDP and Obi’s popularity in erstwhile PDP strongholds in the South-South and South-East will affect Atiku’s chances.
Expectedly, the three other frontline parties, the PDP, APC and the NNPC, decried the polls favouring Obi and queried the method used in conducting them, claiming that they do not reflect the reality.
Despite these favourable electoral processes serving as an index of Obi’s growing national popularity, influence and acceptability investigations show that there is still a long way to labour for the cause.
Money, one of the three determinants of Nigeria politics after ethnicity and religion, is posing a threat to the candidate to effectively and efficiently organise towards victory.
For that reason, according to THEWILL investigation, the major components of the movement are yet to unite behind a common purpose and harmonise their strength and step into the seeming political and electoral vacuum presented by the ongoing crisis in the two major political parties, the APC and PDP, which have governed the country alternately for the past 23 years since the return to civil rule 1999.
The Labour Party, the ‘Obideint Movement and the Third Force are currently polarised over issues of policy and money, investigation shows. Getting the respective groups to come on board has been one of the reasons the campaign council that was promised to take off last week is yet still-born. This division has made the otherwise vibrant and youthful ‘Obidient Movement’ to look like protest marches and not a movement with shared political and social ideas.
Still on the money issue, the lack of proper coordination among the various groups was complicated during the public controversy over Obi’s move to secure funding from the Diaspora.
That is why, for example, some organs in the tripartite organisation would take position on crucial issues affecting the partners in the project, like the recent public disclosure and even celebration of the presidential candidate going abroad to seek funding.
The spokesperson for the Labour Party, Comrade Abayomi Arabambi, disagrees that there is any division or money issue causing disaffection in any group on the LP platform or making it difficult for the campaign council to kick-off.
“What appears as if nothing is happening is nothing other than that we have a lot of stakeholders on the LP platform that want to be involved in the campaign council. We have the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Trade Union Congress, TUC, students and many civil movements. So we are taking time to harmonise and integrate all the groups so people do not say they were excluded,” Arabambi told THEWILL.
The spokesman of the ‘Third Force’, an ally of the LP, whose group is also a champion of the ‘Obidient Movement’, Dr Tanko Yunusa, explains further.
“As we talk, meetings are still ongoing to harmonise the presidential campaign council list. The truth is that every interest group in the movement has to be carried along. We are working to win the election,” he told this newspaper in an interview on Friday.
According to him, Obi would win the presidential election in 2023. While he expressed excitement about two out of the three opinion polls favourable to Obi, he stated that the “opinion poll of the larger spectrum of society, which supports Obi’s candidacy matters most to the organisation,” adding, ”It shows that we are going to win.”
A leader of one of the many Peter Obi Support groups, Mr March Oyinki of Movement for Change Worldwide, is also defensive and optimistic. He said the popular notion about the LP seeming slowness on campaign issues is based on limited knowledge of the internal working of the party.
He told THEWILL, “There is a strong bond between Peter Obi Support groups and the Labour Party. Both plan and work together as one to achieve the common objective to deliver the presidential candidate in the presidential election.”
According to him, ” The composition of the campaign council which will consist of LP officials, support groups and some influential public figures is nearing completion and will be unveiled in just a few days.”
HOW THINGS ARE WORKING IN FAVOUR OF OBI, LP
Obi, who is currently in the United States of America, where he unveiled the seven-point policy thrust of an LP administration last week at Harvard University, is expected back in the country on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 alongside the National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure, according to Arabambi.“When they come, the campaign will kick-off,” he said.
Professor Yakubu Ochefu, economic historian, who told THEWILL a couple of months ago that Obi may win the presidential election either on first ballot or a run-off, said last week that nothing has happened in the intervening period to change his viewpoint.
According to Ochefu, who is also the Secretary to the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, the internal contradictions in the two major parties, the APC and PDP, are currently playing out in the persistent crisis currently plaguing both parties. In addition to that is the angst of many Nigerians against both parties because of the way they have mismanaged the country, thus paving the way for the choice in a viable alternative, which Obi and the LP, have presented.
He added that the youth-driven movement supporting the LP candidate is borne out of a sense of voluntarism, which is a novel development under the current dispensation.
Ochefu told THEWILL last week, “I have not seen any new development that has changed my view. In fact, things are becoming brighter and brighter for Obi and the Labour Party, considering what is going on in the two major political parties.
“If you take the Wike and his group’s grievance with the PDP, it is like a replay of the 2015 politics in the party in reverse, when the PDP broke away and joined the APC in protest that power must go back to the North. The way APC came in, in 2015, is the way they are also most likely to go out, too. You need to feel the pulse of many Nigerians to know that they know that APC has failed in all indices of governance.”
OBI, LP’s GROWING INFLUENCE
Apart from the opinion polls, which has notched up the Obi brand globally, the ‘million marches’ that were initially limited the the South had exploded up North with states like Plateau, Gombe, Taraba and Bauchi hosting crowds. How these marches will turn out in the coming months as campaigns get underway is still anybody’s guess, considering the role that huge outlay funding for mobilisation, advertisement, transportation, hotel accommodation, feeding and entertainment play in the mix.
But the LP people and their allies are unfazed.“Money for logistics is a different matter, but we have said we will not give money for the purposes of influencing the voter,” Dr Yinusa said, adding, “Even the youths who are rooting for Obi have said publicly that even if they take money. they will still vote for our candidate.”
Reminded that this position may not be easy as it appears on the surface, especially if the antics of some candidates is taken into consideration, he insisted on his position against the backdrop of the demography of voters involved in the current electoral process, a demography which is youthful and committed to the party’s cause.
He said, “Unlike 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari got 11 million votes, the current voter registration of eight million of youths, aged 18 to 35, by INEC and the total voter population of 96 million as against 70 million in 2019, has expanded the pro-Obi voter population. LP alone has a 10 million voter strength. This is part of Obi’s strategy in travelling abroad to woo Nigerians in the Diaspora. They may not vote, but they can mobilise their people back home. Do not forget many Nigerians abroad were forced to leave the country in anger and because of the closed opportunities in the country.”
According to Oyinki, funding cannot pose a challenge to the campaign because the many support groups, for instance, are self-funded through crowdfunding from numerous supporters both at home and in the Diaspora.
Another area considered a potential ground for disagreement in the movement is the difference in manifesto of Obi the candidate and the party, LP.
The party, for instance, does not support the privatisation policy of the Federal Government and the removal of oil subsidies, but it supports a public education system that is heavily funded by the government.
Yinusa, who disclosed that the TUC and NLC submitted a charter of demands which have now been collapsed into a policy document of the Obi Campaign Organisation, stated that the anti-corruption centred 7-point policy thrust as unveiled by Obi last week – security, subsidy removal, debt management, Power, Inflation, Gender Parity, Human capital development- was agreeable to all members and leaders of the party.
Meanwhile, Obi has announced a website that members and supporters can make donation to fund his presidential campaign
IN THE EYES OF OTHERS
However, the optimism of the LP leaders and members is considered unrealistic by officials of rival parties.
The PDP and APC think they stand a greater chance of carrying the day because they have the structure to deliver on their mandates. Both parties control a larger share of available personnel, appointed and elected officials in the executive and legislature.
That is what the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Debo Ologunaba, called structure.
“How many Senators, governors, representatives and Assembly members does LP have?” he asked in an earlier interview with THEWILL. “These are the people who are agents of mobilisation for the party in the urban areas and the hinterlands.”
Media Spokesperson for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, holds a similar position as Ologunaba, though he predicts victory for his party.
Dismissing the outcome of the poll for Obi, he said there was nothing that showed that Obi stood a chance in the 2023 poll. According to him, the Obi popularity is a social media hype and cannot match the APC structure and popularity of its candidate, Tinubu, in any way.
But Ochefu disagrees and, in fact, insists that the prognosis about the upcoming election are in Obi’s favour, saying that, “Obi is not a saint in any way, but considering his past records and his readiness to chart a new course from what the two major parties have been doing and the way they are still operating, is the main attraction.
“Fortunately, the new youthful voting population who are sensitising Nigerians to this only option, coupled with the new voting system with electronic transmission of results, will work in his favour.”
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
