By Michael Chibuzo
Prior to the 2023 general elections, a new political force emerged in Nigeria under the umbrella of the Labour Party. This was as a result of the decamping of Mr. Peter Obi from the PDP where he has been for nine years to the Labour Party in a bid to appear on the ballot for the 2023 presidential election.
The new political force quickly got baptised as the Obidient movement shortly after Mr. Peter Obi displaced other Labour Party Presidential aspirants to clinch the party’s ticket. Before that point, Mr. Peter Obi had carefully crafted a thrifty persona for himself as a different kind of leader who is not corrupt or who does not believe in using money to gain political favours or even power.
He also tactically sought a way to capture some youth constituencies especially in the southern parts of Nigeria that felt they needed a new political option other than the APC and PDP. To that extent he successfully inherited the militant wing of the #ENDSARS movement as well as the #LekkiMassacre propagandists.
Mr. Peter Obi and his Obidients did everything possible to portray the Labour Party (possibly because of the presence of Obi in the party) as the party of saints and angels with Mr. Peter Obi holding the key to a new Nigeria. In fact, their favourite slogan became “A new Nigeria is POssible” – the capitalised PO being the initials of Peter Obi. They tagged the PDP (Obi’s former party) and the APC as parties built on the structure of criminality.
Obi during his campaigns in unusual places like churches, crusades and gospel music concert grounds, constantly made reference to ‘dismantling the structure of criminality’ and enthroning the three Cs, which he described as Character, Competence, Credibility and Commitment while also promising at every opportunity to move Nigeria from consumption to production.
As Obi and the Labour Party continued to whitewash themselves, Obidients also told everyone they come across that they “no dey give shi shi” meaning that money does not exchange hands in the Obidient movement. Many Obidients and Labour Party supporters especially the very loud and popular voices on the social media platform X (twitter) went to great lengths to emphasize that their support for Obi or the LP was without any form of inducement.
Some of them tried to force down our throat the narrative that they were supporting Mr. Peter Obi purely for the love of the country and offering pro bono services to the Obi campaign both in the media space and on the streets. It was therefore common to see Obidients making fascist utterances like: “You’re after my life if you’re not voting for Peter Obi”. The emotional blackmail was on another scale.
Thankfully, majority of online and offline progressiveminded Nigerians saw through the deceits of Mr. Peter Obi and the Obidient base especially their cult of top influencers, many of whom gained unexpected online fame by latching onto the Obidient bandwagon. 8.79 million voters saw President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the best option to lead Nigeria through the impending storm. Obi’s defeat signalled the unravelling of the Obidient movement just like Andrew Liver Salt.
A pungent stench of criminality, embezzlement, forgery, extortion etc soon started oozing out from the lair of both the Labour Party and the Obidient cult. Many innocent Obidients looked in utter shock and amazement as it dawned on them that all the scores of Obi Support Groups they may have donated to was used by those in charge of the offering bag to buy properties, buy “Lexus bitches” (as one popular Obidient cashivist described her new car acquisition) and sponsor leisure vacations to tourism havens.
Even the candidate, Mr. Peter Obi and his inner team led by former activist, Aisha Yesufu left many of their supporters disappointed when they hurriedly conjured and presented a laughable table, which they described as the account of donations and expenses of the Obidatti Campaign Council. Many grey areas were immediately apparent in the figures especially the absence of any figure as funds realised from diaspora donations. At the party level, the Abure executives were fighting over N3.5 billion unaccounted funds being proceeds of forms and other donations received by the Labour Party.
The other side of the Obidient movement’s “We no dey give shishi” masquerade was however fully unveiled in the past few days – a fallout of the Edo 2024 governorship primary by the Labour Party, which produced Olumide Akpata from Gov. Godwin Obaseki’s LGA as the LP governorship candidate. The first duel in the Obidient family squabble was between two Edo radical Obidients, FS Yusuf and Harry, who started exposing their private chats showing that after all, requesting and receiving “shi shi” was part of the conditions for promoting a candidate.
Tales of extortion, blackmail and outright fraud by these Obidient influencers soon flooded the X universe with many of their victims coming out to narrate their ordeal in the hands of these Obidients. A party that was campaigning to dismantle the structure of criminality in Nigeria was ironically already building a skycrapper of criminality within their party even when they have not grabbed power.
With the embarrassing tales of corruption, embezzlement, looting etc emanating from the Labour Party and the Obidient movement, it is funny to still see many of the dramatis personae or even the innocent Obidients watching by the wayside or those calling for the major actors to “off the mic’ trying hard to exonerate Mr. Peter Obi from the mess in Labour Party with various watery excuses. If Mr. Peter Obi cannot lead by example in terms of accountability and transparency, how does one expect those he leads to do any better?
This entire comedy going on in the Labour Party has succeeded in stripping Obi bare and showing that he cannot handle a complex country like Nigeria, at least not through deceit and sanctimonious posturing as a ‘new breed of politician’. A leader who cannot handle a leadership squabble in his party or control the conduct of his Obidient base or their appetite for internal criminality and corruption is definitely not anywhere fit to manage the complexities of a nation like Nigeria.
With every passing day, the Obidient movement and Labour Party are doing everything they can to fizzle out like Andrew Liver Salt. In 2027, Peter Obi of course would contest under a Labour Party he must have imposed his choice of leaders on, however his participation in the 2027 race will be to help President Bola Ahmed Tinubu win re-election against a serial presidential election contender, the Dubai-based Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.