Peter Obi's Great Expectations

I do not doubt in my mind that when Charles Dickson wrote his classic  novel, Great Expectations, that he hardly thought that it could be relevant in the era of social media and The Internet of Things. The major theme of Great Expectations revolves around Pip’s ambitious desire to reinvent himself and raise to a higher social class which didn't happen. You don't have to read Great Expectations to know that we all have  dreams and ambitions that may turn out like Pip’s. Those who have read Great Expectations would agree with me that Pip didn't fail to reach his ambition for lack of trying but the forces against him were just too overwhelming.

This engagement would interrogate the obstacles that could hinder Peter Obi’s ambitious desire of becoming our next President in 2023. I write to enlighten and to provoke quiet instrospection which could be extremely valuable to Peter Obi’s partisan supporters if they read with an open mind.

 In my opinion, Peter Obi’s supporters seem to be one of the major hindrances to the realization of his presidential ambition. They believe everyone must support Peter Obi and those who don't are demonized and regarded as saboteurs. They seem to forget that democracy is about choices and the freedom to express one’s choice without inhibition is more important than one’s candidate winning the election. Therefore, chastising, blackmailing, and arm-twisting   everyone to join the Peter Obi’s locomotive train is bound to impact its electoral fortune negatively because voters do not like to be pressured to support a candidate especially when voting  is a voluntary act.

Respect for other people's choices is another non-negotiable principle of a democracy that Peter Obi’s supporters don't adhere to. For them, Peter Obi is the only sanctimonious candidate among the contestants, while the rest of them are rogues. To this end, they erroneously link the campaign against vote-buying to Peter  Obi’s electioneering campaign thereby alienating potential voters who believe that they could still collect whatever they are being offered by politicians and still vote their conscience. This scenario played out in the recent Ekiti State Governorship elections. A lot of voters collected money from whoever decided to play Father Christmas but they still went ahead to vote for their preferred candidate; replicating what we witnessed during the party primaries across party-lines.

The advocacy against vote-buying should be done on a non-partisan basis, without bias,  for it to get the desired buy-in of the electorates. The campaign should be on: "don't sell your votes, vote for any candidate of your choice", for example. To insist that people should not collect money but they should vote for only Peter Obi amounts to arm-twisting, and it may backfire because the people would not refuse to collect money from crooked politicians but they would vote for whoever they like, and not necessarily Peter Obi. 

The next issue emanating from Peter Obi’s supporters that could have negative consequences on his ambition is the way they market him to the public as the best man for the job. However, they seem to forget that democracy is a game of numbers and not majorly who can do the job. This explains why we say in a democracy, the minority has a Say and the majority has the Way. Therefore, campaigning for Peter Obi as the best man to govern the country when you don't have the numbers required to make him realize his ambition is akin to Pip’s travails in Great Expectations. Pip’s quest of becoming a gentleman in Victoria's time was hampered grossly by his social background more than anything else. 

Similarly, Peter Obi’s political zone is the greatest hindrance to his quest of becoming Nigeria's president because the zone does not have a subsisting alliance with other political zones that is required to assist any serious candidate reach the presidency. For example, Mohammandu Buhari, who is from the Northwest became president after three unsuccessful attempts when he secured an agreement with the leaders of the Southwest in 2015. Buhari defeated former President Goodluck Jonathan to reach Aso Rock even though he wasn't the best man for the job, but he had the numbers behind him. This is one of the silent flaws of democracy as a form of government. 

I wonder how many of Peter Obi’s supporters know that no matter how popular a candidate is, meeting the constitutional requirement of 2/3 of the votes cast in the 36 states of the federation and FCT, Abuja, and having the highest number of votes cast in the election is not an easy task. No candidate can meet these requirements without a strategic plan and an agreement with at least 3 other geopolitical zones on how political offices would be shared. For example, which zone the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representative and so on would come from. 

I don't think that the much-touted momentum Peter Obi’s candidacy has generated in the Southern part of the country would enable him to meet these requirements. If any politician would have surmounted these requirements with such momentum then Buhari would have done so with his party, the CPC, in 2003, 2007, or 2011. Recall that Buhari’s campaign mantra “Sai Baba, Mai Gaskiya” resonated with the common people in the North but it couldn't take Buhari beyond Mararaba junction, the outskirts of Abuja. That was how close Buhari’s 12 million votes could take him. Do I need to emphasize that a candidate who gathers below 12 million votes is likely to land at Akwanga junction?

Those who are underplaying the importance of political structure seem to have forgotten that Buhari’s CPC challenge was anchored on a formidable political structure. In the North, the CPC had candidates contesting for every elective position from the State House of Assembly to the presidency. But the CPC had no such structures in the South. The party’s pre-2015 scorecard  in the South speaks to what would befall any political party that underestimates the importance of political structure in our contemporary electoral process. Forget the fairy tales of Northern youths voting for Peter Obi without structure. The same Northern youths that didn't support the ENDSARS movement or another one? Wait a minute, did we allow our youths to vote for Buhari, the “religious zealot” who was coming to Islamize the country in 2015? Do we expect the politically savvy Northern leaders to organize a fura party for their youths and implore them to support Peter Obi in 2023?  In a high-stakes game of political maneuvering, what goes around, comes around. 

It's instructive to note that Buhari’s CPC didn't induce voters and didn't even campaign against vote-buying yet the massive support the party enjoyed as reflected in the outcome of the elections was unprecedented in our electoral history. Hence, what Peter Obi is trying to do with the Labour Party is not new, but I don't think he would be able to surmount the impact of Buhari’s CPC in that regard except he forges an alliance with Kwankwaso’s NNPP and other minor parties across the country. The joker card would have been an arrangement between Labour Party, NNPP, and PDP. 

From my observations, it would seem like the bulk of Peter Obi’s supporters are the same people who supported former President Jonathan in 2015 and Atiku/Peter Obi’s presidential bid in 2019. So, the symbolism of the defeat they suffered on these two occasions seems to be the driving force behind their support for Peter Obi’s ambition to become president. But unfortunately, they seem to be repeating the same mistakes they made in those two previous elections this time around, which is the presumption that the other political zones share the same political interest with them and are most likely to vote for their preferred candidate. For example, in 2015, when the APC campaigned to remove PDP from power after 16 wasted years coupled with the abysmal performance of former President Jonathan they resisted and campaigned viciously against the candidacy of Buhari in a manner we have never witnessed in our political history. The depth and intensity of their campaign of calumny against Buhari convinced those who do not have the requisite knowledge about Nigerian government and politics to believe that Buhari was not electable. 

In all they did to stop Buhari from becoming President, they either ignored or thought that the interest of the North and Southwest was in tandem with theirs. But the results of the polls proved them wrong. This is because each political zone in the country has its core political interest which they protect at all times. For any zone to align its interest with that of other zones a political horse-trading is required. In this regard, what is popularly known as the zoning of political offices in political parties would suffice. 

In 2019, the momentum to vote out President Buhari was hinged on the poor performance of his government on the economy and security. These same groups of campaigners were relatively sure that the entire country have had enough, so President Buhari will be voted out of office. Any attempt to make them realize that the other political zones would vote based on their core political interests and simply not how Buhari has performed was met with scorn.  

My point then, there was no way the Northwest would abandon President Buhari and vote for Atiku Abubakar who is from the Northeast or the Southwest to abandon the APC for the PDP when they know that power would revert to them in 2023 after Buhari's tenure. But did the opposition, listen? They were carried away with the imaginary euphoria that the entire country was fed up with President Buhari’s relatively poor performance in his first term in office.

As I predicted then, the results of the 2019 polls vindicated my reputation as a trained political analyst. The political zones that voted for APC in 2015, despite President Buhari's performance,  voted to retain him in power in 2019 . Even the political zones that suffered the ravaging insecurity problems in the country the most voted to retain President Buhari. 

That's a clear indication that in every electoral cycle political zones vote based on their core political interest and not the trending emotionalism in our political space or media.

The 2022 electoral cycle has started in earnest and the trending sentiment on the street is the momentum Peter Obi’s candidacy has generated. This same group of campaigners have started again. They have  come up with an illusion of perfect utopian electorates who have uniform expectations of bringing Peter Obi to power come 2023 through the ballot. They falsely justify the illusion with the eagerness the youths' have shown in the ongoing voters registration and collection of PVC from Oloibiri, the hometown of Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro in Bayelsa State to Kaura Namoda Local Government Area in Zamfara State. This false impression that they are currently pushing on all media would impinge on Peter Obi’s Great Expectations. 

If only they can put on their thinking caps and mull over the questions I would raise as a reality check, it could do them a whole lot of good  with regards to Peter Obi’s ambition: A. How does Peter Obi’s candidacy align with the core political interest of each political zone? ; B. Would the Southwest abandon Bola Tinubu and vote for Peter Obi or Atiku Abubakar? ; C. Would the 13 out of 14 APC Northern state governors who backed Bola Tinubu’s candidacy during the APC’s primaries abandon him in the main election and support Peter Obi? ;D. Would the PDP-controlled Southeast and South-South states abandon Atiku Abubakar/Okowa and vote for Peter Obi? 

Those following Peter Obi just to freely express their choice irrespective of whether he wins or not should not ignore those questions because they are the true democrats and they deserve to know why Peter Obi may suffer Pip’s fate . But those who think that the momentum Peter Obi’s candidacy has generated “across the country” would land him in Aso Rock should do so at their peril. 

Felix Akpan Ph.D

lixzito@yahoo.co.uk