2027 Presidency: Why Obi Stands No Chance
By Wole Olujobi
In the last few years, Dr Peter Obi of APGA, PDP, Labour Party, semi-SDP, ADC, PRP applicant and NDC, has desperately been jumping from one political party to the other over a consuming ambition to be elected as Nigeria’s President. As a rule and habit, Obi hates to build for a political habitation: his method is nomadic, usurping the structures of existing parties, and when crisis erupts, he bolts to join another party in a chain of defections never witnessed in the political history of Nigeria; the country that needs builders that can weather political and economic storms to build a virile, prosperous nation.
Never for him a leader that builds structures or nurtures a vision that attracts followership for a common agenda unlike other focused leaders that are faithful and loyal to their political persuasions to achieve their political dreams, as explained recently by a public analyst, journalist and scholar, Professor Okey Ikechukwu, in a television commentary.
According to him, a serious leader stays the course, builds and sustains solid structures and maintains faithful followership to succeed in politics, unlike what Obi is doing in his makeshift politics of expediency with no discernible vision and followership’s loyalty.
This is what Barry Avotu, the leader of “Obidient Movement” explained in a well-publicised televised press conference that he and other leaders formed the pro-Obi movement for a noble cause only for Dr Peter Obi to hijack the movement and impose his whims on the group, leading to the rejection and expulsion of Obi by the group.
Another Obi’s ally, Prince Kennedy Ahanotu and his group, also rejected Obi as their leader, declaring that Obi is not a builder of men while Obi’s former spokesman, Kenneth Okonkwo, declared that Obi runs a visionless politics of gambling for self-elevation.
Another albatross is Obi’s open support for IPOB in his condemnation of the Supreme Court judgment on the proscription of IPOB and its designation as a terrorist organisation, which has since stoked fears that Obi can leverage the Presidency to pursue ethnic agenda to break up Nigeria.
Critics argue that Obi is neck-deep in alleged Biafra nationalism so much so that when on behalf of Anambra State he deployed state money to invest in the International Breweries Limited, brewers of Hero beer, Obi allegedly ensured that Biafran insignia (logo) and colours (red, yellow, black and green) were deliberately chosen as the label of Hero Beer to foster a deep emotional connection with the Igbo people and send a message across the South East that he shared in the dream to divide Nigeria to ensure that Biafra becomes a sovereign nation. And this is clearly against the interest of the vast majority of innocent and hardworking Igbo people who are living and conducting their businesses peacefully among their compatriots across Nigeria!
This much former Borno Governor, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, explained in a Channels television interview when he said that Northerners understand that Obi’s agenda is to divide Nigeria and so they will never support or vote for Obi in his desperate agenda to divide the country through the instrumentality of presidential powers.
“This is why Obi, when he faces difficulty in getting the presidential ticket in one party, he moves to the other to get the ticket” Sheriff explained, adding that his burning agenda is to divide Nigeria through presidential powers and the North will never vote for him to help him divide the country.
Although Kwankwaso had sought to deflate Sheriff’s postulation quoting NNPP’s score in the 2023 presidential election, fact is that more than 70 percent of Kwankwaso’s loyalists in Kwankwasiyya Movement, including the current Kano Governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, National and State Assembly members and all commissioners in Kano State have all defected to APC working for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Kwankwaso’s argument is also punctured by the reality of former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau’s massive bloc in Kano politics now working for APC.
Again, for painting the 2023 election as a religious and ethnic war, an average Muslim sees Obi as a man that will use his executive powers as President to advance religious and ethnic advantage in favour of Christians.
Another problem is Onitsha crisis in 2006 during which over 100 Northerners were reportedly killed and markets belonging to them burnt down. Reports suggested that when respected Northern Emirs offered to intervene to douse tensions, Obi as the governor allegedly refused to hold a peace meeting with them.
This fear of ethnic bias is also further reinforced by the recent alleged Obi’s manipulative conduct when the FCT chapter of the Arewa Consultative Forum Chairman, Alhaji Musa Aliyu, accused Dr Peter Obi of “demonstrating deep-seated bias against the Arewa community by working to overturn a delicate, mutually agreed zoning arrangement established to maintain regional balance in the nation’s capital”.
The group expressed shock that “despite these outcomes being the product of a transparent democratic process, high-level maneouvers are reportedly underway allegedly by Obi to substitute the name of Grema, the son of the Sarkin Hausawa of Abuja, with that of Uchenna Harris Okonkwo, a serving federal lawmaker from Anambra State who allegedly failed to secure a return ticket in his own home constituency”.
Another problem is his alleged opaque and cloudy approach to all issues. For example, during the 2023 presidential election, Obi was dubbed the “soapbox champion of beautiful lies” on account of dexterity in cooking alleged fraudulent opinion polls by discredited pollsters that placed Obi above far more popular and credible candidates. Recklessly, opinion polls, which ought to guide voting behaviour as in the Western world, were turned into a bazaar and casino for political manipulations for fraudulent advantage.
For instance, a discredited polls agency, (the NOI Polls) declared that Obi maintained “a solid overall lead” ahead of Tinubu, PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar; and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) in the 2023 presidential poll. It all turned out a hoax allegedly choreographed by Obi in alleged fraudulent device to deceive Nigerians into supporting him, as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu roundly trounced Obi and other candidates in the results that emerged in the presidential poll.
This poll information analysis company had earlier falsely predicted victory for Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka of PDP in the July 14, 2018 Ekiti State governorship election, which Dr Kayode Fayemi of APC resoundingly won, just like NOI Polls failed in 2015 when it falsely predicted that President Goodluck Jonathan had over 70 per cent chance above APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, who NOI had earlier rated as the fourth in the ballot, but who eventually emerged as the winner with a wide margin in the presidential contest.
In its polls before presidential primaries in 2014, NOI had rated Buhari fourth behind Jonathan, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso and Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, in that order, among other prospective presidential aspirants, even though Fasola never told anyone he would contest the election. In the end, Buhari that NOI had rated number four roundly trounced Jonathan to win the 2015 presidential election, which NOI had predicted Jonathan to win through dishonest cyber manipulations that devalue Nigerians’ worth as decent human beings.
It is in this context that Dr Peter Obi should be put on the scale to assess him from the standpoint of integrity and trustworthiness, before Nigerians, again, gamble with their lives for Obi’s leadership of the country.
In 2013, Obi was quoted in the media as saying: “I will not only remain in APGA, I will also die for APGA.” But when he later left APGA, he refused to commit suicide.
“The day I leave APGA, which I have made up my mind never to leave, I will quit politics.” But after he left APGA, he became more active in politics desperately angling to become president.
“Igbos don’t need APGA in Aso Rock for them to achieve their aims.” (But he started nursing presidential ambition to live in Aso Rock since his days in APGA. Or if we may ask; what exactly are the Igbo’s aims they want to achieve without living in the Aso Rock? Perhaps Ali Modu Sheriff has provided the answer.)
“Anambarians should not vote for PDP. PDP is a party alien to the Igbo. PDP is synonymous with destruction,” but Obi later defected to the same destructive and evil PDP.
At the Chatham House in London in 2023, Obi deceived the entire world when he lied and lied and even lied against himself to feign competence.
According to the Premium Times report on Chatham House event at the time, Obi, in order to paint APC-led Federal Government black, claimed that apart from Venezuela, Nigeria was at that time the only OPEC nation that could not meet its oil production quota. But verification from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) showed that from September to December 2022, none of the OPEC member countries had met its production quota.
Obi also lied that Nigeria had about 60 per cent of youth unemployment, whereas NBS dashboard showed that Nigeria had 42.5 per cent youth unemployment.
He claimed there were 20 million out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria alone, whereas the total out-of-school children in the entire Nigeria was 20 million, according to the global data on out-of-school children published in September 2022 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Obi claimed that Nigeria’s GDP per capita in 2015 was $2,550, eventhough World Bank’s data put it at $2,679.
He also lied that Nigeria’s total health budget was below N2.5 trillion from 2015 – 2021, whereas it was N2.50 trillion.
Obi also lied: “As of 2015, Nigeria’s total debt stock is about N15 trillion. But today (January 2023), with CBN ways and means, we owe over N75 trillion.” But Nigeria’s public debt in December 2015 stood at N12.6 trillion, according to official data from Nigeria’s Debt Management Office. Nigeria’s total debts combined with CBN’s loans was N67.8 trillion, not over N75 trillion, as falsely claimed by Obi at the Chatham House.
Also, at one of his campaign stops while canvassing for votes in 2023, Obi was quoted as saying: “I signed at least 5,000 certificates of occupancy while in office as governor. If you find one piece of land allocated to me, directly or indirectly, I will stop campaigning for President.”
Two days after he falsely made that claim, social media was awash with a photocopy of alleged land allocation approval in alleged favour of Obi by the Anambra State Housing Development Corporation and the approval to the alleged beneficiary was addressed to him as the Executive Governor of Anambra State. After that revelation to expose his lie, Obi kept sealed lips.
The latest stunt was the airport incident which Obi alleged was a plot to kill him to prevent him from running for the nation’s Presidency. He never told Nigerians that his disorderly conduct at the airport over illegal parking at the restricted area caused confrontation between him and the airport officials. Instead, he chose Adolf Hitler’s method in his dangerous lies to lie that government was after his life and businesses. Nigerians should therefore not be surprised if in the next few days rabid Obi’s supporters set up fake killer gangs in choreographed attacks to kill Obi in order to discredit Tinubu to stoke public rebellion against his government for sympathy, resulting in setting off a chain of reactions to stoke violence and create opportunity to widen pro-Biafra agitations through recklessly seditious acts. It is just gratifying that the close circuit television footage of the incident proved that Obi is a shameless, heartless and incorrigible liar.
Up till now, Obi has not explained to Anambra people the impropriety in his alleged involvement in alleged criminal conspiracy in the famed Pandora Files where secret public assets allegedly cornered in Anambra were held overseas allegedly in his family’s favour as if weilding power is a legal way to illegally corner public assets.
The electoral process ought not to be a call to trust the leaders; it is all about seen leaders as trustworthy and a call for leaders to be more trustworthy, for the most important aspect of leadership is integrity, otherwise when things go bad, lack of trust in leadership often gets people killed.
For instance, the 36th American President Lyndon B. Johnson once lied to the Americans that led to the Vietnam War. President Johnson lied to the Americans about attacks by Vietnam on U.S. destroyer warships, the same ships that later launched the Vietnam War. The problem was that those attacks never actually happened at all. As a result of the alleged attacks, the American Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson the power to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further attacks.”
This resulted in a brutal war in which America lost fortunes and unnecessary wastes on both sides.
The leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, borrowed from that philosophy too when he said: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed,” even if that results in apocalypse like the World War, which Hitler stoked through lies. Such a leader is not only unfaithful to his oath of office, he is also dangerous to the society.
What Nigerians need is a honest leadership to chart a transparent course in tackling myriads of crises bedeviling the nation as Nigerians struggle to overcome the hardships imposed on them by long years of irresponsible leaderships that took Nigerians for granted through deceits in the ways they have been governed.
How long will Nigeria continue to recycle liars as government leaders at the time that honesty, trust, integrity and credibility in leadership are what the nation requires to weather the storms of the present disillusionment imposed by dishonest leadership?
All these are compounded by the embarrassing quality of Obi’s performance in public discourse at a time the nations of the world present their cerebral leaders to preside over their affairs.
Generally speaking, a leader who lies is dangerous to the lives of his followers and the larger society. Nigeria needs a competent and upright President; not an unmanageable, pathological, compulsive, dangerous and incorrigible liar, particularly now that NDC has sold out its presidential cake to the Annaniah and Saphira of the Nigerian politics.
Olujobi, a journalist, who served as Deputy Director of Media and Communications in 2026 BAO Campaign Organisation, writes from Ado-Ekiti