PETER OBI: A PRESIDENTIAL AMBITION IN AN UNPRESIDENTIAL PARTY

In the past few weeks, a number of things have become quite very clear about the presidential candidates for the 2023 presidential election. The following are the most obvious among them:

1. That the former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi is the most qualified among the candidates in terms of quality and preparedness. Obi has demonstrated his preparedness in the numerous interviews he granted to journalists. The basic difference between him and the other candidates is that why the others are busy sharing dollars and sending their spokespersons to speak on their behalves, Obi is personally addressing Nigeria’s problems and stating in clear terms how he is going to tackle country’s current predicament.
2. Obi has won the hearts and minds of millions of Nigerian youths who are vigorously campaigning him and is therefore the most preferred presidential candidate in Nigeria today
3. Obi is the most suitable presidential candidate for Nigeria judging from the current socio-economic problems facing the country. As one commentator puts it, Obi might not have been the best candidate for Nigeria few years ago but judging by the current economic difficulties facing the country, a candidate of Obi’s managerial abilities is what Nigeria needs.

However, in spite of all these beautiful qualities recommending Obi for the presidency there is palpable fear in several quarters that Obi may lose the election. A number of reasons have been adduced for this fear but four of them are most ad rem for our purpose here:

1. Obi is Igbo and it needs more than a miracle for an Igbo man to become a president in Nigeria
2. Obi does not have the material resources to run a resource-intensive Nigeria’s presidential election
3. Ndi Igbo, Obi’s electoral base generally have low voters turn out in presidential elections
4. Obi’s party, the Labour Party, does not have the prerequisite national structure to win a presidential election.

Of these four reasons, I consider the fourth concern the most cogent. However, as we shall see shortly, the other concerns are subsumed in the fourth and any answer addressing the fourth will likely address the other concerns.

A Presidential Ambition in a Structureless Party

Few days after the Labour Party adopted Obi as the presidential flag-bearer at its convention in Asaba, the seasoned Nigerian journalist, Dele Momodu while acknowledging Obi’s suitability for the Nigeria’s top job, maintained that Obi would lose the election because he is in the wrong party. The summary of Dele’s analysis is that the Labour Party does have the structure to help Obi clinch the top job. The media personality, Daddy Freeze has also expressed the same sentiment. While conceding that equity and fairness demand that the presidency should go to the Southeast, Freeze regrettably underscored that the only person who could have helped the Southeast actualize its dream of ruling Nigeria is in the wrong party. By and large, this sentiment has continued to being reechoed through the length and breadth of this country.

In all honesty, no matter how an optimist or an ardent supporter of Obi one is, one has to admit that Obi’s chances of winning the presidency from the Labour Party is very slim. If for nothing else, history has shown that it is almost impossible to win a presidential election or any election for that matter, in Nigeria from an insignificant party like the Labour Party.

Now, should this be the end of the road for Obi and the millions of Nigerian voters who are banking their hope in him? I don’t think so. There is something about history in Obi’s favour. Let us see.

History is on Obi’s Side

In the social sciences there is a theory known as social construction. The summary of the theory is that no human institution falls down from the skies. Every institution is socially constructed by human beings; as such, every human institution can be deconstructed and reconstructed.  Let’s be very clear here, established social and political institutions are difficult to change especially when they have lasted for tens of years. Someone calls this the iron law of oligarchy. However, changing political institutions is not impossible once the people are able to mobilize the critical mass of the energy that is required to push the change through.

Now, Nigeria’s political institutions are less than a 100 years and political institutions of hundreds of years have been changed. Less than a hundred years ago, it was never believed that a black man would rule the United State of America. In fact, saying it alone was considered a taboo but Barak Oboma came, broke that jinx and the became the first African American president. Today in Nigeria, it is believed that an Igbo man cannot be president; that it is impossible to win a presidential election from a party without structure, that if you don’t have money to throw around you can’t win a presidential election, etc., but all these are social constructions. They are not part of the inexorable laws of nature or the established order of how God wants and made things to be, they are made here in Nigeria by Nigerians and can be deconstructed here in Nigeria by Nigerians.

The question is, are Obi’s supporters, especially the youths determined to muster the critical mass of energy that is required to explode these primordial constructions holding Nigeria down and preventing her from actualizing her potentials?  I think we can and please don’t forget to get your PVC.