By Omoniyi Salaudeen
The impressive performance of the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, in the last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections is still a shock to many people, for he has demystified the age-long myth of political structure. To the chagrin of his other contenders, Obi, who was generally regarded as the dark horse in the race, upset the applecart, emerging the third-place runner in a keenly contested election.
For the record, 18 presidential candidates contested the elections across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who doubles as the Chief Returning Officer, Prof Yakubu Mahmood, declaring the results of the election, said that the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, scored a total vote of 8,794,726 to emerge as the president-elect, while his two other close co-contenders – Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 6,984,520 votes and Labour Party’s Peter Obi 6,101,533 votes to come second and third positions respectively. The candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, followed with 1,496,687 votes.
Further analysis of the overall performance of the candidates showed that Tinubu and Atiku won in 12 states apiece, while Obi recorded victory in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The 12 states won by Tinubu are Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Jigawa, Ondo, Kogi, and Niger. Atiku, on the other hand, recorded victory in Taraba, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe, Bayelsa, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe, and Katsina, while Obi harvested majority votes in Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Delta, Edo, FCT, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos and Cross River states.
For his remarkable feat, many political commentators have described Obi as the hero of the just concluded presidential election. Although no one gave him the benefit of the doubt that he could make a reasonable showing in the poll, he sprang a big surprise, taking the Labour Party from obscurity to national prominence.
When Obi picked the ticket of the Labour Party, having abandoned the PDP, where he had contested as the vice presidential candidate to Atiku in the 2019 general election, he was mocked and derided for the lack of political structure. But with the combined effects of social discontent, especially among the youths, and his power of sophistry, his campaign manifesto, which centred on rescuing the country from the tyranny of the order, resonated throughout the country. And in no time, it became a huge movement swirling across the length and breadth of the country like a tornado. The youths as well as the old saw him as a symbol of their struggle for a better tomorrow.
As the voting pattern shows from the results released by the INEC, two fundamental factors played a dominant role in this election: religion and ethnicity. While Atiku and Tinubu predominated in the far North with a largely Muslim population and Southwest respectively, Obi swept the votes in the Southeast, South-South, and partly North-central where Christians hold sway.
Though Obi may have lost the election, he is seen by many pundits as the ultimate winner of this contest in the sense that his victory has changed the balance of the power equations in the country such that no single party can dominate the entire political space in the coming dispensation. Hitherto, APC and PDP had dominated the scene, walking tall like a giant among other mushroom political parties. It’s now a different narrative. With the outcome of the results, the 36 states of the federation are now equally shared by APC, PDP, and the Labour Party with a sizeable number of elected representatives in the National Assembly.
Thus, the composition of the 10th National Assembly is going to be a rainbow coalition. As of last count, APC has 51 senators-elect, PDP (27), Labour (seven), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), three, Social Democratic Party (SDP), two, Young Progressives Party (YPP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), one each.
This is a milestone in Nigeria’s journey towards an enduring multi-party democracy. More than ever before, people are now optimistic that there would be a more robust debate of issues in the coming dispensation contrary to the present situation where the National Assembly is largely perceived as a rubberstamp legislature. The Obi-Datti Movement as an emerging third force played a major role in this new setup.
A renowned labour activist, Chief Frank Kokori, while sharing his perspective on the issue with Sunday Sun in a telephone conversation, described Obi Movement as a phenomenon.
“Obi is the greatest phenomenon and miracle in this election. He is the greatest beneficiary of the BVAS machine. For so long, Nigerians have been rigging elections. This is the fairest election in the history of this country. Can you ever imagine that anybody will beat Southeast and South-south governors in their own domain? Obi did not even have a representative in my area here in Delta. Yet people voted for him because they were tired of the old order. We did everything to convince them to vote for the candidate of APC, but they refused. Neither APC nor PDP could even win House of Representatives and Senate seats,” he said.
He attributed the sudden change of the status quo to the power of social media, which made it easy for the youths to mobilize themselves for the Movement.
“You know the youths are not in our generation. Whatever you tell them; they say ‘no, Obi will save them.’ So, it is a miracle. So, for me, Obi is the greatest beneficiary of this election. You will defeat South-south and Southeast governors? Where are you coming from? It’s terrific,” he added.
While noting the influence of religion and ethnicity in the voting pattern, he said “the only problem Obi had was that he lost everything in the far North except Kaduna, Benue, and Plateau states. His message did not resonate so much in the North. The whole Igbo in Nigeria voted for Obi to show their solidarity. All the youths of Bendel origin and Niger Delta also voted for him.
“Because the youths are suffering they wanted a change. Many of them don’t even know who Tinubu is. They said so many negative things about him and I told them that they were all lies, but they didn’t want to listen. Obi didn’t even come to my place to campaign, he only campaigned in Asaba and left. Yet, he defeated the governor of Delta State. Who would ever imagine that that can happen when Ibori and others would write results? South-south people used to write results, the Southeast people too used to write results.
“Election is fairer in the Southwest and the Middle Belt. In the Southeast, they won’t even allow you to vote for APGA. But the Obi movement is like a cult movement. The outcome of this election has shown Nigerians that they have been rigging elections. People can’t rig elections with BVAS that is why the figures are very lean. Before now, people would vote 10 times, they would snatch ballot boxes and write any result. But now, BVAS has revolutionized everything.”
Kokori, however, expressed doubt on the possibility of Obi sustaining the momentum beyond this election.
According to him, lack of funding and political patronage will make it impossible for the Labour Party to maintain its visibility beyond this next dispensation.
“The only problem is that Nigerian politicians can’t survive without patronage. All those you see on television shouting Obi are thinking of getting positions. And Obi does not give money. When those expectations are no longer forthcoming, they will all shift back to the government. In no time, Obi’s moment will fizzle out gradually because there is no money. Because they are very hungry, they want to be in a party that will give them money and positions. Again, Obi is not a liberal democrat. He is a capitalist. But because there is no real person in Labour Party coupled with what Atiku did to South-south, they gave him the ticket. Atiku is a Fulani man and there is no way another Fulani man will be accepted by the people because of what Buhari has done. Obi may not be popular like this if he had run with Atiku.
“No doubt, Obi is a phenomenon. He has tried. The Southeast, South-south, and Middle Belts voted massively for him. Leveraging the support of all these regions, he was able to spring a surprise. But as we all know, the far North doesn’t joke with religion.
“By and large, the election is clearly very fair. So, let nobody say he is going to court. They will only be wasting their time. If there was anybody who could not vote with BVAS, it was because the network was bad,” he posited.
For Chief Chekwas Okorie, a leader of thought in the Southeast, there is no way the issue of structure can be wished away no matter how popular a candidate is. In his opinion, Obi would have defeated his two other frontline contenders if he had on the ground a visible structure across the country.
His words: “First of all, let me join others to congratulate Mr Peter Obi for his sterling performance in this election. He surprised everybody. However, the issue of structure cannot be wished away. He has done very well. But if the Labour party had a structure in the same way APC and PDP had, he can assure you with this type of performance, Obi would have defeated others by a wide margin. So, if he didn’t win the overall election, it can only be blamed on the lack of necessary structure.
“If he had a structure in areas where he performed very poorly, his performance would have been better across the board. So, the issue of structure remains important even in future elections. I do believe that if the Labour Party can sustain and consolidate its gains, by the next election, he will have the structure he doesn’t have now.”
For him, what Obi’s performance has done was to arouse the consciousness of the people of Southeast towards the President of Igbo extraction.
“If anybody has followed my advocacy, I have never for once thought that a president of Igbo extraction is impossible. What they need to do is to unite and extend the hands of friendship to other people. I think Obi has done more than anybody in that part of the country to arouse that consciousness.
“Obi has aroused Igbo political consciousness more than anybody, including myself. I give it to him. My pride is that I was the one God used to bring him to the political limelight. Perhaps, as chairman of APGA, if I didn’t give him the ticket to become the governor of Anambra State, he would have nothing to showcase to Nigerians what he could do given a higher responsibility,” he argued.
The Secretary of the Ijaw Elders Forum, Mr Efiye Bribena, in his own submission, dismissed the myth about structure, saying “it is the people that are his (Obi’s) structure and that showed in his results.
“I am not surprised that Peter Obi won in 11 states; I believe his performance is far better than what the INEC recorded for him. The report showed that most of his votes were suppressed, while the results of APC and PDP were padded up.
“I don’t think he has lost this election. That Peter Obi could garner the number of votes he got in my village in Bayelsa State where the PDP has done so well is a great phenomenon.
“For its failure to transmit the election results directly from the polling units, INEC itself has violated the electoral law. These are the issues that will determine the final verdict of the court on this election. So, I expect that the court will either upturn the results or order outright cancellation of the elections.”
Meanwhile, Obi has indicated his decision to challenge the legality or otherwise of the elections. The months ahead will decide where the pendulum will swing after the looming legal fireworks.