Peter Obi’s presidential aspiration appears to have been appropriated by a social media lynch mob who are attacking his opponents in packs and tyrannising those who do not share their views.
On Thursday, the senior pastor of Covenant Christian Centre, Poju Oyemade, tweeted a message on faith, which he concluded by urging youths not to waste their enthusiasm on a “poorly planned project.”
Oyemade’s tweets
He wrote in the tweets: “Faith is not just blind belief or hoping for a miracle. Faith sees. Faith has her eyes opened and possesses the evidence upon which it builds its belief. Faith prepares long, sometimes for years just as Joseph did for the years of famine. Faith counts the cost before embarking.
“Without having real evidence upon which you are acting nor preparation for the task, recognising real obstacles that lie ahead and making concrete plans, one is just being delusional about the outcome. The enthusiasm of
the youth must not be wasted on poorly planned projects.
“Noah spent months/years planning for the flood & he was operating in faith. Jesus said no man goes to battle without taking stock first nor lays the foundation of a tower without counting the cost first lest he will be
mocked. Our faith is intelligent; it doesn’t live in denial.”
As the host of The Platform, a forum which brings together resource persons to discuss national issues, Mr Oyemade is never shy of political commentaries. Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has appeared in the forum a couple of times to propagate his political ideas. The cleric appeared to be enamoured of the politician.
Although Mr Oyemade’s tweets of Thursday made no direct reference to politics, Mr Obi’s supporters descended on the clergyman moments after the tweets appeared. They held the message as a criticism of their campaign for Mr Obi. Young people, many of them having no contact with the candidate or his party, have been the mainstay of Mr Obi’s campaign thus far.
Their vitriol was, as usual, relentless. Even after Mr Oyemade took down the tweets, the supporters continued to drag him on social media, as they gloated over the capitulation of yet another “enemy” of Mr Obi.
Commenting on the development, Sam Amadi, a lawyer and regular political commentator, wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday: “Pastor Poju was right about the need for rigor and not rhetoric to solve national problems. But thay have cancelled him.”
It is a pattern that has become recurrent and thus disturbing, as the 2023 polls approach.
Like Oyemade, like Mbaka
Two weeks earlier, the chaplain of the Adoration Ministry in Enugu, Ejike Mbaka, was hounded by the same group of supporters after a foot-in-the-mouth remark the cleric made that Mr Obi would fail in his presidential ambition because he is “stingy.”
Within days of the statement, thousands of Mr Obi’s supporters who were also followers of the Reverend Father bragged that they had unfriended him on his social media accounts. Their attacks persisted even after the Catholic Diocese of Enugu dissociated itself from Mr Mbaka’s utterances, before eventually suspending him from all activities of the church. Mr Mbaka later apologised for his statement.
Pandora Papers
This newspaper too has felt the intolerance of the supporters. Shortly after the party primaries, PREMIUM TIMES had reshared some of its previous investigative reports that indicted three of the leading presidential candidates of corruption.
The reports had earlier been published between September 2020 and October 2021 on the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, his counterpart of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and Mr Obi.
None of the politicians challenged the findings of the reports, so they were reshared to offer readers glimpses of their past and characters.
Although the three publications were shared within hours of each other, the supporters of Mr Obi were the most vicious in attacking this newspaper over a consortium of international journalists’ findings in the Pandora Papers that he registered secret companies outside Nigeria. The supporters baselessly alleged that the report was done out of bias or inducement.
But their attacks have not been for only those who criticise them or their candidates. They also go after Nigerians for merely expressing support for different candidates. Although this is not peculiar to Mr Obi’s
supporters, they have taken it to a new low.
A day before turning on Mr Oyemade, they had ignited a controversy by their attacks on some actors who had declared their support for Mr Tinubu.
The actors made their position known in a video clip shared by one of them, Yinka Quadri, that features them taking turns to endorse Mr Tinubu’s candidacy.
In this instance, Mr Obi’s supporters accused the actors of giving their support to the APC candidate because he is Yoruba like them or trading it for money.
In the controversy that followed on Twitter, a commentator, @ManLikeIcey, wrote: “Psquare are free to support Peter Obi, it’s their right. Yoruba actors/actresses are free to support Tinubu, it’s their right. You’re equally allowed to support your preferred candidate, it’s your right. Don’t bully people for their constitutional right.”
Lynch mob
Mr Obi’s presidential aspiration appears to have been appropriated by a social media lynch mob who are attacking his opponents in packs and tyrannising those who do not share their views.
Reno Omokri, a former aide of former President Goodluck Jonathan and campaigner for PDP’s Mr Abubakar, last month cried out about the incessant verbal abuse he receives from the supporters of Mr Obi.
“In my life, I have never been insulted the way @PeterObi supporters insult me. Yet, this same Peter lobbied me when he wanted to be Atiku’s running mate in 2019. I supported him over others. Yet, he watches as his people
insult Atiku and I. Nobody knows tomorrow.”
Obi’s call for restraint
To be fair to Mr Obi, he had repeatedly admonished his supporters to stop insulting or attacking his opponents and their supporters. For instance, rather than joining issues with Mr Mbaka over his remarks on him, the candidate urged his supporters to cease the attacks, saying he would meet the cleric over his misgivings.
Yet, the illiberalism of his supporters bodes ill for his own ambition and Nigerians’ efforts at building a democratic culture.
Following the attacks on the actors supporting Mr Tinubu last week, some commentators quickly observed the contradiction in attacking the actors when entertainers and other celebrities who are Igbos like Mr Obi had also been campaigning for him without apology. They also remarked that many of his campaigners on social media are of the same ethnic stock.
Identity politics
Nigerians have been trying to escape from the trap of identity politics, since it was acknowledged as a big factor in the collapse of the First Republics. In the transition to the Second Republic, the military government tried to ensure that the political parties are national in outlook, although the success of the effort was modest.
In the short-lived Third Republic, the military government of Ibrahim Babangida imposed two parties on the country in a futile effort to rebuild Nigerian politics on ideological foundations.
Identity politics have also proved very inflammable and lethal in some countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and defunct Yugoslavia
However, despite the liberal nature of the laws guiding party formation in Nigeria, politicians have realised that a candidate cannot win the presidency without broad national support, regardless of the level of support the candidate draws from their own part of the country.
Party structures
Mr Oyemade might well have been alluding to Mr Obi’s supporters in his controversial tweet of Friday. But given his relationship with the candidate and concerns about political development in the country, he might have been giving honest advice through his admonition.
Many observers genuinely see the frenzied campaign of his supporters as a sail that will take Mr Obi nowhere, until his party builds a structure across the country on which it can compete with the two major parties in a national election. He apparently recognises this too as he has been in talks with other parties for an alliance that may help them cover the country.
The APC and PDP have party executives in perhaps each of the about 10,000 wards in Nigeria. These officials will mobilise party members and voters in their campaigns across the 774 local government areas of the country and monitor the process in the 178, 000 polling units on election days. Without structure in a constituency or area, the party is invisible, however heavy its work may be on social media.
In last month’s governorship election in Ekiti, the LP was not visible for this reason and returned with an appalling 285 votes from across the 16 LGAS of the state. This is in spite of some of Mr Obi’s most ardent
supporters being from the state.
This may also be the case in the July 16 governorship election in Osun where the LP candidate, Lasun Yusuff, refused to have anything to do with Mr Obi’s social media mobilisers because the presidential candidate himself had not reached out to him.
So if Mr Oyemade intended his message to be applied to the current politics, he probably was advising Mr Obi and his backers to spare time and energy in the eight months before the general elections for building the structures their party needs to harness Mr Obi’s seeming popularity and save the hope and enthusiasm of his youthful supporters from ending into a mirage in February 2023.
Above scrutiny
Another implication of intolerance of opposing views is that it scares people away from frank discussion of the personalities, records and ideas of the candidates. As can be seen in the case involving publications by this newspaper on three candidates as earlier cited in this piece, overbearing supporters want to place their candidates above scrutiny.
Aside from denying the electorate the robust information they need to make informed decisions, it bears with it the danger of shrinking the political space and denuding pluralism. Democracy thrives on pluralism and that is the reason it strives for harmony by accommodating different tunes.
In the final analysis, Mr Obi’s supporters cannot win broad support for him by merely sanctifying him in the sea of their own adoration and demonising everyone else. Other supporters also think the candidates they support are the best but they have no right to force those views on others.
Akin Fadeyi, the founder of “Corruption, Not in My Country” advocacy group, in a comment on Thursday, after a supporter of Mr Obi attacked him over a comment he made on the candidate, said: “Those of you who have constituted yourself into E-THUGS for politicians, you’re not better than ballot-snatching political thugs you always repudiate. Some of them are actually better than some of you. Just take this to the Bank: Powerful and resourceful brains don’t make noise and you can never win converts for a candidate you’re building enemies for.”
Nigerians know that none of their politicians is a saint and after 19 years in active politics, eight of them as a state governor, it is Mr Obi’s past record in government as well as his ideas and promises that voters will use in assessing his candidature. He will be placed under scrutiny by those who take him seriously and all of them will not deliver the same verdict.
Atiku walking a tight rope
Atiku Abubakar’s ecstasy over his victory at the presidential primary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has ebbed over cracks in his party since he picked Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate.
Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom confirmed in an interview with Arise Television on Wednesday that the advisory committee the party’s leadership and Mr Abubakar set up for guidance on the pick, by 13-4 votes, recommended Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike for the slot.
Mr Wike, who was already aggrieved with the manner in which Mr Abubakar defeated him at the primary, has refused to take his latter disappointment with equanimity.
It is a big concern for the PDP and its presidential candidates, realising that they cannot risk Mr Wike’s wrath going to the elections, for many reasons.
Rivers and PDP
The governor’s Rivers State has always given the PDP some of its largest blocks of votes since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, largely compensating for the opposition’s usual victories in Lagos and Kano, the two states with the highest numbers of registered voters. Losing the state or a large portion of its votes may be suicidal to the PDP in its quest to end its eight years out of power.
Mr Wike also has influence in other South-south states, especially in Cross River State. Since that state’s governor, Ben Ayade, fled to the APC, Mr Wike has taken its PDP chapter under his wings. Cutting off his support will affect the campaigns of the party where the PDP is in the opposition for the first time in its life.
Wike’s backers
It has also been established in recent weeks that Mr Wike’s broad support at the primary was not a fluke. At least five other governors are in his camp. They are united in their current disaffection with their parties, which has further strengthened Mr Wike’s hands in the confrontation with the party’s national leadership.
Mr Abubakar is an inadvertent victim in the furore over the choice of his sidekick. He had to choose whom he considers best to work with. And many leaders of the party, especially in the North, do not think highly of Mr Wike as a candidate for the high offices of president and deputy.
This was one of the reasons that roused them into action when they realised the Rivers’ governor could bully his way into nomination at the convention. It was the reason that Sokoto governor, Aminu Tambuwal, succumbed to the pressure on him to step down at the last moment for Mr Abubakar, even though the two had never been friends.
Ironically, Mr Wike had backed Mr Tambuwal to the hilt at the previous convention that he hosted in Port Harcourt and could not have expected the Sokoto governor to deliver the stab that killed his own bid in Abuja.
Mr Abubakar rubbed salt on Mr Wike’s hurt when, in announcing his running mate, he said he picked Mr Okowa from among those recommended because the Delta governor is suitable to be president.
To be fair to Mr Abubakar too, he would have also drawn the wrath of Mr Okowa and others who helped him win the ticket, had he picked Mr Wike.
Infidelity to principle
Mr Abubakar is also a victim of his party’s infidelity to principle. In this case, however, maybe he does not deserve much sympathy.
Since he first returned to the PDP after the fiasco of his presidential run in 2007, he had been among the vocal advocates of zoning, the basis for their demand that President Jonathan should not run in 2011.
They asked Mr Jonathan, who became president in 2010 after the death of President Umaru Yar’adua, to stand aside so that the northern wing of the party could complete its abbreviated turn in that office. Eventually, a compromise was reached by the power brokers in the party for Mr Jonathan to run for a single term, his own South-south region having never produced the president or vice president.
However, in 2015, after the president had developed his own sense of entitlement to a second term, Mr Abubakar was among the rebels who sabotaged his reelection by defecting to the newly formed APC.
When he returned again to the PDP ahead of the 2019 elections, Mr Abubakar also campaigned on the zoning principle, as a result of which southern members left the field to their northern colleagues in the presidential primary. Mr Abubakar was reported to have promised his southern supporters that he would serve only one term and hand the baton over to the south in 2023.
But having failed in his election bid again in 2019, Mr Abubakar, who appeared to have retired from politics after relocating to Dubai following that defeat, returned home – this time to lead the charge against the zoning principle.
He got his way again but may pay a heavy price in 2023 unless he manages to fill the cracks in his party.
Some southern leaders of the party like former Ekiti governor, Ayodele Fayose, are implacable over the perceived dubiety of their northern colleagues. Mr Fayose on Wednesday vowed to support only a southern candidate next year, despite being a member of the ad hoc committee that recommended to the party to throw the presidential primary open, so that the best candidate could emerge.
Lopsidedness in hierarchy
Another facet of the crisis is how to resolve the albeit foreseen consequence of the party’s presidential ticket going to the North after the national chairman emerged last year from the same region.
When Iyorchia Ayu was elected as the chairman, it was on the understanding that the south would produce the presidential candidate. But it was also proposed that in the event the ticket again went to the North, Mr Ayu would give up his chair. Mr Wike and his camp are demanding that as the minimum condition for sheathing their swords.
But Mr Abubakar is more comfortable with Mr Ayu, a political associate since the Third Republic, remaining on the chair. He can ill afford to have behind him during the election a chairman whose loyalty may be to another person or cause.
Mr Abubakar has urged Mr Ayu to be allowed to remain until after the elections. It is not clear how he would persuade Mr Wike and his camp. But unless one of the sides backs down, Mr Abubakar risks retiring as the most persistent candidate who never won the Nigerian presidency.
