I remain fully persuaded that Obi lost what would’ve been his ‘best primary and priority option’ ab initio.
By Tiko Okoye
It bears repeating for the umpteenth time that I was never – and I’m still not – on the same page with critics who hurled all manner of abuses, curses and invectives at Bola Ahmed Tinubu for picking a Muslim like himself as running mate. The saddest part of the narrative is that the very ones most vociferous in opposing Tinubu knew very well that the decision was driven more by a strategic decision to win the election than a plot to crystallize religious domination. To hear critics tear Tinubu apart you would think that he’s the first presidential candidate to run on a same-faith ticket. Oh no! Chief Obafemi Awolowo (a Christian) tried it in 1979 and failed. Chief Moshood Abiola (a Muslim) did it in 1993 and achieved a raving success.
Unfortunately, the annulment of the 1993 presidential election and the heightened polarisation of the country along ethnic and religious fissures have caused the nation to lose all the huge gains made in enthroning meritocracy as the primary consideration for attaining the highest elective office in the land. For very obvious reasons, it is far easier for a Northern Muslim presidential candidate to pick a Christian – or even a fellow Muslim – from the South as his running mate, and still win the election than for a Southern Muslim presidential candidate to pick a Northern Christian and perform a similar feat.
Where many saw disabilities and incapacitation with the Muslim-Muslim ticket, I perceived uncommon possibilities and opportunities. I dreamt of a time in the not-too-distant future when Northern Muslims voting for a Christian/Christian presidential ticket would equally become a matter of routine. But that was before the demonic forces superintending our demon-crazy were brutally unleashed on February 25 and March 18.
And while the nation is yet to even partially recover from the self-inflicted bruises, a recently leaked audio tape of an alleged conversation between the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and the Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Worldwide Church aka Winners Chapel, Dr David Oyedepo, went viral in the social media, generating partisan incandescent rage. What surprises me though is the speed with which the dramatis personae rushed to deny the authenticity of the recording that was released by an online media outfit called the People’s Gazette.
After all, Barrister Kenneth Okonkwo, an iconic Nollywood actor and a spokesperson of the Labour Party presidential campaign council, confirmed the authenticity of the taped conversation very early in the day; as did the longest-serving top aide of the party’s presidential flagbearer, although each tried to put a slightly different spin on the narrative. And right after Obi publicly disowned Okonkwo, insisting that the recording was the handiwork of “grandmasters of deception and obfuscation” in the APC, the latter issued a terse statement – largely in response to the army of Obidients mad at him for ‘rushing’ to confirm the authenticity of the recording without first discussing the issue with his principal – that’s notably cryptic and poignant: “Honesty is the best policy.” Unless you’re living in Alice’s Wonder Land, that not-too-subtle rebuttal leaves nothing to the imagination.
After PRNigeria reportedly subjected the tape to several digital and forensic Speech Recognition and DeepFake Tests, it determined that the voices of Obi and the highly revered bishop returned 93% and 84% accuracy level respectively, ruling out the use of Artificial Intelligence in generating or modifying the voices. Which makes me wonder why there’s such an indecent haste to deny the very obvious. I personally see nothing wrong with the content of the audio tape. Are we trying to convince ourselves – like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand – that the recent presidential election wasn’t conducted strictly along religious lines?
READ ALSO: Adebanjo knocks Lai Mohammed over treason allegation against Obi
So, exactly what can be wrong with those involved countering that they were collaborating to squarely tackle the clear and present danger posed to Christians by a Muslim-Muslim government. The slew of wishy-washy denials of non-involvement simply amounts to moving from the sublime to the ridiculous in my opinion. Not unless the participants interpret the crux of the conversation – “a religious war” – as true but very unpleasant and costly under the current conditions besetting the Nigerian polity.
When all is said and done, I surprisingly share the likely concerns of those caught out in the leaked tape. There isn’t a scintilla of doubt in my mind that prioritizing equity, fairness and inclusiveness by ensuring there’s a balance in representation of every faith and ethnic group in the incoming administration would be Bola Tinubu’s Job No.1 after the highly contentious eight years of President Buhari in this regard, coupled with tensions and deep divisions attendant with the victorious same-faith ticket. But the emergent risk is that the contents of the leaked tape would re-harden positions and see religious bigots huddling down in their bunkers.
Many people wonder why Obi is carrying on as if the nation is still in an election campaign season. They posit that with the declaration of the winner of the presidential poll by INEC, the stage is next set for losers who desire to challenge the verdict to do so using the grievance arbitration mechanism provided by the election petitions tribunal process. They further contend that even if the Supreme Court were to order a rerun, such a poll would only involve Tinubu and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar who came first and second respectively, leaving Obi, who came third, completely out in the cold.
That being the case, members of this school of thought wonder why Obi is hell-bent on crying louder than the bereaved or, to put it more graphically, why he, a knight of the Catholic Church, is pushing and shoving to be more Catholic than the Pope. But come to think of it, Obi has no other choice. He is the author and direct beneficiary of a socio-political movement branded ‘the Obidients.’ It goes without saying that a movement is really a mob without a formal structure and leadership. It would’ve been an entirely different ball game if Obi had won. It would’ve afforded him the time and space to knead the malleable Obidient movement into a rigid political party just like Emmanuel Macron of France did when he won the presidential election the first time.
Suffice to say that while success has many fathers, failure is a forlorn orphan. History has proven that movements and revolutions, regardless of whether they succeed or fail, have a relatively short shelf life. Having not won the presidential election, and given the underwhelming performance of Labour Party candidates in the general elections, Obi and Baba-Ahmed are left with no real option than to creatively badmouth Tinubu’s victory, even at the risk of being charged for treason, in addition to their lawsuit, as a way of creating memorable spectacles to quarantine the otherwise fleeting loyalties of skittish young people.
It would be fallacious to think that the Gen Z revolution aka Obidient movement is all about altruistic efforts at achieving a balanced religious presidential ticket. Just as the one-eyed man easily becomes the king in the land of the blind, the Gen Z generation concluded that regardless of whatever shortcomings Obi might have, he’s still radically different from the stale and unpalatable menu of recycled over-aged politicians supposedly responsible for the nation’s stunted development and lack of economic opportunities. Nothing else can explain why the feat Obi performed in winning 12 states – same as Atiku and Tinubu – wasn’t carried over into other elections as Labour Party ended up grinding out a sole governorship position.
Nonetheless, I remain fully persuaded that Obi lost what would’ve been his ‘best primary and priority option’ ab initio. Despite the pains he must be feeling at losing – which can only be the product of over-exaggerating his chances – he should have emulated the example of Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. While the collation was still going on, Jonathan, who through the reports collated from PDP party agents nationwide knew he had lost – called Muhammadu Buhari to concede defeat. The great respect and admiration in which he’s now held by Nigerians across party lines and the rest of the world far outweighs whatever he stood to gain by challenging his loss in court, as many of his associates and cabinet members were pressurising him to do.
In Obi’s case, the loss of a number of disenchanted Obidients would’ve been more than commensurately covered by the larger number of Nigerians holding him in highest esteem for his noble gesture. They would’ve seen it as proof that Obi is the real article and gone a long way in laying out a pathway to a more fruitful outing in a future presidential election. He had nothing significant to lose since age is very much on his side.