Why Are Peter Obi’s Supporters Tempestuous?
Again Peter Obi has been forced to apologize for the vituperative commentaries and responses made often by his vibrant battalion of voters on the Internet and social media, bands of youths who are everywhere chanting vitriols against the establishment as well as brandishing their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) in readiness for Nigeria’s presidential election come February 2023.
So adroit, cynical in their use of vitriol, Peter Obi’s supporters are offsprings of a generation docile, flabby and obese with fear and disillusionment, the age that did nothing tangible for the soul of Nigeria. A movement propelled by the yearning for a new dawn. Something utterly nouveau. Something of the Labour Party’s age-long culture of usurping the civil space to achieve agendas likely to transmogrify and uplift the hoi polloi.
Last week they booed the Senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial zone, Senator Dr (Mrs) Uche Ekwunife nee Ogudebe (IYOM) of the PDP, the new minority leader in the National Assembly. A Senator who was absent last year during the vote on the floor of the National Assembly concerning the controversial e-transmission of electoral results. Her absence offended every informed person in her constituency and beyond.
She was booed after sharing food items and beverage to encourage the crowd of youths to go ahead and collect their PVC from the electoral body, INEC. When she asked them to remember the PDP in 2023, thunder and lightning began to strike. The rowdy notes from Peter Obi’s mass choir muzzled the brazen Senator’s lonely aimlessly unsolicited supplications.
What an unethical thing to do by this time, when for the past four years she has not championed any meaningful legislation on education, free and fair election, e-transmission of electoral votes, food production, security and social amenities for the communities within her constituency riddled with violent dissent and sub-nationalist agitations.
She was eventually whisked away from the scene by her security abruptly. The video I saw was a serious message for all career politicians that are preparing to buy votes in the South East of Nigeria in 2023. The chant of “Obi” grabbed the air. The audience were agitated. Peter Obi has changed Nigeria politics forever.
For four years this Senator and her counterparts in the National Assembly have not passed any law on youth employment, free and accessible health care provision, housing for graduates and the unemployed, welfare for women and girls.
With their constituency allowances they enjoy themselves and send their children abroad just like Senator Dino Melaye, and Senator Ike Ekweremadu who is in jail in the United Kingdom because of his daughter’s ailment, following the accusation of organ harvesting, exploitation.
A week ago Peter Obi’s fans and voters refused to sympathize with Ike Ekweremadu. Even when Peter Obi dropped a cryptic message to empathize with the embattled lawmaker his followers frowned, roared.
A couple of days ago Poju Oyemade’s tweeps badgered him for attempting to demarket Peter Obi. The cleric was brutally heckled until he deleted his tweets, a message about Noahide faith and evidence, politics and preparation, which subtly suggested that he referred to Peter Obi’s followers as too adventurous to be interested in voting a man who was not as prepared as the other presidential candidates such as Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He was seriously rebuked and bundled out of the blogosphere like the ushers would do a mad man trying to distract an ongoing church crusade. They reminded him that he chose Mohammadu Buhari in 2015 who was so prepared and yet plunged the nation into its current predicament because of his age, educational background, policies, health status and other precarious regional interests men of his demography always are excited about.
It is no longer news that the Peter Obi gang has become more clangorous than the Red Pill cult as the February 2023 presidential election draws closer. And they have a reason to be.
They are so confident, fluid and abso-intimidating-lutely enraged for the political battle ahead, as their song echoes fast and furious like the vibes of the American rapper Eminem in his song “I am not Afraid”:
“And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today
I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, I'ma face my demons
I'm manning up, I'ma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now (now)”
They are prepared to put their lives back together, ready to “waste” their votes on Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
Since 1999 Nigeria has been a pluralist-liberal democracy embattled with regional power struggle. The north with its cultural collectivism and religious extremism plays a politics that is different from the south, whose political tactics is demoralizing due to the timidity and individualism of the players. This has given birth to a destabilized nation controlled by a less educated and more violent cabal, deaf and dumb, horrible and greedy, blind and nonchalant about the woes of the suffering masses.
Aware of this situation, the youths across board understand that the only way possible is to fight for their future now or never. It has happened before. Like the rolling rock they are determined to crush every bat, and trample on any umbrella on their path.
In 2014 there was an attempt to break Nigeria from the chains of political failure. Gen. Mohammadu Buhari came with a voice of change that was followed by thunderous ovation, such that his followers terrorized the government they had intended to remove. Youths were found insulting former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on the streets.
It was damn messy.
They built a casket for the former president and paraded it around cities. Different television programs were used to mock and abuse the former President. With social media the Buharists, who were mainly people who followed Atiku Abubakar to the APC, stooges deployed by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and many others, took the former ruling party PDP and its supporters to the cleaners.
Even as former governor of Rivers State and many PDP politicians cross-carpeted and gave the APC the needed boost in 2014, social media soldiers remained abusive in driving their vision across. They were like touts in Lagos empowered by Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Rabid. Yobbish.
Even after the victory of the APC the opposition was gagged and tagged wailers. No one could question the vuvuzelas.
Now after seven years of Mohammadu Buhari’s government that failed on every count, the populace were presented with an unfit candidate by the ruling party.
The failure is so bad that it is hard to count the population of those who have denounced the movement which unfortunately includes Atiku Abubakar who had to cross-carpet to the PDP and now, the Presidential candidate that wants to wrestle power from the party it brought to Nigerians in 2015.
Also, it is frustrating that the APC is fielding a Bola Tinubu who’s the person who singlehandedly began the alliance with Mohammadu Buhari against every common sense, against every warning that the old soldier is neither a democratic leader nor a man who could build Nigeria’s economy.
The current government has successfully solidified and worsened the status quo. From the economy to human security, from governance to infrastructure, from regional stability to foreign politics, Nigeria is at its worst state ever since 1914. They have used the country’s President as a model of a bad leader in institutions of higher education abroad.
Peter Obi’s supporters are a bunch of warriors who are equipped with data, information, statistics, digital infrastructure, courage, diverse population and political knowledge enough to confront the madness of Nigeria’s status quo.
They are voices so tempestuous. So splenetic that they are using the Internet, social media and other technological spaces to rattle and shovel away the easily bought and intimidated traditional media and the utterly annihilated stooges of the opposition. Stooges hired to post lies, insults and fallacies against Peter Obi.
Peter Obi and his fans have been the source and nucleus of major news reportage for all the candidates including Rabiu Kwankwaso and many irrelevant political busybodies such as Reno Omokri.
Peter Obi’s cruising and emboldened section of the populace comprises of both male and female, humanists, Muslims, Christians, and traditionalists, Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Ekpeye, Ijaw, and the entire regions in Nigeria, who are educated in fintech, digitization, advertising, democratic capitalism, politics, economy, sciences, arts, literature, history, religion, culture and entertainment. From the diaspora to the homegrown mass of aggressive youths and embattled middle-class. These characteristics make the Obidients quite calculated, articulate, evangelical, unshakable like a rock and agile like the Egyptian Pyramid. They are everywhere.
They are tempestuously dishing out torrents of truth, ribboned with vehemence, deftness, and audacious hope. They are not taking any prisoners and they are ready to go any length to face any one using lies, fallacies, or historical blackmails to defend the repulsive candidates presented by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) even across different political arms other than the presidential candidates.
The battlespaces for the modern warfare which have changed the way governments and political parties engage today are the Internet, social media and digital, mobile technology.
Peter Obi’s voters are equipped with all of that.
It is glaring that Nigeria’s verbal and ideological war on social media would pour over the banks soon. This is beyond political. It is beyond Peter Obi. And his fans are massively ready and bold.
From Taraba to Benue to Southern Kaduna, it appears that the 22 million votes Goodluck Ebele Jonathan got to achieve his victory in 2011 when he contested against three Muslims will repeat again for Peter Obi in 2023 when he will be facing three Muslims, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Peter Obi’s people are tempestuous because they want a better Nigeria. They are hungry for something new, something better. This movement is beyond tribalism, yet peopled by a tribe of educated and wounded electorate. It is a call for the resurrection of the crucified soul of Nigeria. It requires a loud shout like Jesus Christ did when he resurrected Lazurus from the dead.
Therefore Peter Obi should desist from calling the youths to learn from the murderers of common sense. He should be encouraged to see that it’s not just about frustration and anger, it is about genuine revolution that is geared towards uprooting the weeds of national penury.
In Peter Obi’s recent speech he said, “I sincerely thank my supporters for believing in me and my commitment to building a united, secure and well-functioning Nigeria. However, I appeal once more that we should be tolerant of other people's views, dissent and divergent opinions & possibly learn from them.
“While the frustration and anger in the country is understandable, we must strive to channel that energy positively in ways that will earn the support and collaboration of others.”
Let Peter Obi be notified that when the propaganda being unleashed against him and his family — like the one referring to his son as an IPOB member, or the rumors making rounds that his statistics are fabricated — by the opposition begins to simmer, his eyes will then open to the essence of this tempest which his voters and voluntary campaigners are summoning to his rescue.
Dr Chinonso Ndukwe wrote from Abuja. He is the founder of Smartsoft Projects and a lecturer with the National Open University.