As the Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal get ready to deliver judgment on the three petitions filed by the PDP Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi and the Allied People’s Mandate (APM) challenging the declaration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the 2023 Presidential election, a separate plot to destabilise Nigeria is also steadily being hatched by the supporters of one of the aggrieved losers at the poll.
Mr. Peter Obi supporters popularly known as Obidients with the tacit support of Mr. Peter Obi himself, have been displaying anti-democratic tendencies right from the run up to the 2023 general elections. They constituted themselves into a fascist mob targeting anyone who dares think outside their herd gospel. To the Obidients, Mr. Peter Obi is the Messiah and had to win the election for the results of the poll to be acceptable. At the direction of Mr. Peter Obi himself who described the election as a religious war, Obidients obeyed their principal and made the election a Christian crusade.
They professed Christianity and light in their campaigns yet spewed the vilest dose of fake news, propaganda and hatred against anyone not supporting Mr. Peter Obi with the greatest victims being supporters of the then APC presidential candidate and eventual winner of the election, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. When the results started rolling in and eventually it turned out that in spite of their relentless propaganda, defamation, intimidation, online cancellations and offline blackmails, Mr. Peter Obi came a distant third and won in areas he was expected to win bar one or two surprises.
Obidients could not believe their eyes. They looked for a straw to hold onto and they found IREV portal and 25% in the FCT as possible live savers. Boom, the next phase of the fascist campaign started! They begged the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari to constitute an interim national government and prevent the swearing in of a validly elected president on the flimsy ground of not meeting their 25% in the FCT fantasy requirement. Datti dropped the lead signal, the mob followed and ran with the narrative. They failed once again.
Obidients then activated their next plan of intimidating the judiciary especially Justices of the PEPT and the Supreme Court judges right from the beginning of the hearing of the watery petition of Mr. Peter Obi. On the online street, the mob would be singing that ‘Obi is coming’, ‘Obi is reclaiming his stolen mandate’ and the likes. In the court room Obi’s legal team were struggling to stay coherent in what they actually want and basically weaved their entire case around IREV portal. Up till the end of the month hearing of their petition, they could not tell the court what they feel was Peter Obi’s authentic score that warrants him to be declared as winner of the election by the tribunal.
And so, the hearing of the case ended and it became obvious even to the most optimistic Obidient that their principal, Mr. Peter Obi has no mandate to reclaim. They then activated potentially, the most deadly plan of all – laying groundwork for insurrection against the Nigerian state the moment the presidential election petition tribunal, as expected, throws out the petition of Mr. Peter Obi for lack of merit and abuse of court processes. Popular Obidients have been blackmailing the Justices of the PEPT, splashing their faces and those of their families across the social media and on projector screens of churches.
Some Obidients are going as far as marking businesses owned by children of some of the Justices out for mob action. Evidences abound online where Obidients openly threaten to burn down these marked businesses owned by children of the judges if they fail to deliver a judgement in favour of Mr. Peter Obi. As usual, Mr. Peter Obi has maintained a graveyard silence in the face of a relentless assault and blackmail on not just the independence of the judiciary but the soul of democracy. Obidients simply want to truncate Nigeria’s Democracy just because majority of Nigerians decided that Mr. Peter Obi was not good enough to be elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2023.
With the ill-advised and brazen erection of ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’ billboards by donation-seeking fraudulent Obidients in parts of the country coupled with the innuendos they are making, it is obvious that this fascist movement is planning an insurrection against Nigeria once the PEPT delivers its judgment. So far, the Obidients have deluded themselves by believing that they have the monopoly of violence or that supporters of the President are docile.
However for the sake of the country and to avoid needless confrontations and violent clashes, now is the time for all sane individuals, stakeholders, religious and socio-cultural leaders to call Obidients to order and warn them not to test the resolve of our laws and democracy-loving Nigerians. The DSS should be on high alert to foil any ongoing plans to carry out an insurrection by election loss deniers who cannot accept the pain of defeat and strategise for the next election.