My brother and friend Emeka Duru, a member of the reverred Nze na Ozo fraternity in Orlu, Imo state, said in the title of his article last week in the Niche online publication that ‘Peter Obi is not the issue’ afflicting the floundering regime of Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his special purpose All Progressives Congress (APC) clueless ruling party. In the old order, unblemished integrity and fidelity to the truth are some of the irreducible minimums for admission into the Igbo Nze na Ozo clan. Sadly, these requirements for membership appear to be receding as some young men of dubious character and questionable wealth have invaded that rarefied association ostensibly in their quest for legitimacy, relevance and acceptance. Today, many Igbo men and youngsters who are living thousands of kilometres away from the Igbo homeland simply send money home to their relatives to purchase the title of Nze or Ozo, and membership of the club. But I know Nze Emeka Duru. I know he lives here and he associates closely with the people of the ancient Orlu Kingdom where he comes from. He is honest, he is truthful, to the extent that any typical human being can be. If he makes a mistake it will be that of the heart, not the head. And he made a mistake in the title of his article which I referenced above when he wrote that Peter Obi was not the issue. The blurb in the said article which I alluded to said Nigerians needed issues of hunger and poverty holding them down to be tackled. That they needed assurances of a better future for their children. That they needed adequate security for their businesses and properties. That these were the issues that matter to the citizens. The point is that these things enumerated by Duru are exactly the issues that Peter Obi speaks to, and hammers on, to the discomfiture of our current rulers. And because those are the issues that Obi forcefully and relentlessly calls attention to, he has become an irritant to this band of insensitive rulers. He has, therefore, become the issue. So Peter Obi is the issue. They ignore him at their own peril. They take him out also at their own peril. Head or tail they lose. The rulers are in-between and in-betwixt.
Obi is not a typical Nigerian politician in spite of his being a two -term governor of the south east state of Anambra, and a presidential running mate at another election. So when after the Nigerian Supreme Court legalised the controversial, some would say fraudulent, 2023 presidential election, and Obi said he would not abandon the pursuit of his quest for the realisation of a better Nigeria, not many people took him seriously. The expectation was that he would grumble and make noise for a few months, slip into oblivion, lose traction with his base of mostly young people, go abroad to catch his breath and attend to his health and business, and possibly return close to the next election in 2027 to once more stake his claim to the presidency. None of the expectations came to pass. And no sitting regime, especially that which has been burdened with a lingering perception of illegitimacy, and so many warts and baggage, will not feel irritated and angry at the ‘effrontery’ of Peter Obi. Not many rulers in a third world country like Nigeria will be comfortable with any citizen calling them out for inflicting pains and privations on the vast majority of the people. How can a man whom the electoral agency and the courts had judged that his alternative vision for the country had been rejected by the Nigerian electorate remain so popular and relevant? How could it be that the voice of the same man who was said to have been spurned by the majority of the voters still carried so much weight and resonated across the country two years, next month, after the election? It’s irreconcilable. It just does not make any sense. He should be stopped. The high decibel ‘noise’ from a man with a naturally tiny voice must be muzzled.
So what happened recently with Felix Morka, national publicity secretary of the APC, was natural and expected, though weird. It’s typical that when one party in a debate loses the argument, they resort to abuse, intimidation, threat, and violence – first verbal and then physical violence. Morka and his band in the APC are at the first stage of verbal violence. And what they have done was to serve a notice that their regime will not be shy in moving to the next phase. The use of the phrase “crossing the line” by Morka on Obi was intentional, thought – through, deliberate, and collectively considered and agreed upon by the APC enforcers and executioners. For them it is enough for Obi. Words carry weight and meaning. It’s especially so in a fledgling anti-democratic dispensation such as ours is rapidly turning into. It does not matter whether the threatening words and warnings were muttered in a sober or in a menacing manner. And in this instance, Morka was menacing. He could not hide the fact that the APC is frustrated by the rankling failures of its successive administrations since 2015, first with that serial bungler and affliction of Nigeria, Maj.Gen. (rtd) Muhammadu Buhari, and now the clueless Tinubu who appears to enjoy the contours of pain on the faces of the majority of Nigerians. We had very early predicted the trajectory of this regime. It is headed by a pseudo -democrat. This has been manifestly obvious since his sojourn in partisan politics. Except for deception or the fun of it, vigorous debates of policies have not been his forte. Baba sope or the master has spoken associated with him since after his governorship was not invented out of thin air.
So many discerning people knew from the onset that the Lagos democracy template would be exported to Abuja when he was declared the winner and beneficiary of the presidential election about two years ago. It is no surprise, therefore, that the principle of co-equal arms of government in a federal system as ours is designed to be now exists only in name. The Executive approximates the federal government. The national legislature and the judiciary are suborned by an emergent imperial presidency. There could still be remnants of courageous judges but they are a vanishing tribe. The so-called national assembly is now irredeemable. The leadership and followership of the national assembly (NASS) have repeatedly proclaimed that they exist and work at the pleasure of the president, and that whatever the Executive branch asked them to do should be taken as done. The fusion of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial arms of our government into one is virtually concluded. There are no longer opposition lawmakers in NASS in terms of offering alternative visions for governance, or raising their voices against oppressive policies including using public money to fund lavish and ostentatious lifestyles. How can they when they are also beneficiaries of the largesse and the profligacy by their government. By the way, many of the opposition lawmakers, especially of the Labour Party (LP) have since abandoned ship and joined the ruling party. The party and partying must go on.
Obi’s latest act of ‘treason’, according to the APC, was that he spoke to Nigerians through the mass media to mark the new year. He spoke to many issues affecting Nigerians including insecurity, poverty, inflation, mindless borrowing by the present administration, poor education, dilapidated health facilities, death traps that passed as roads and highways across the country, misplaced priorities by the ruling party, the insensitivity of the ruling elite, grotesque and unconscionable lifestyles of those in government at all levels, a comatose economy, and the prospects of further deterioration in the living standards and living conditions of the vast majority of our people. Almost everybody who is somebody but who’s not at the APC banquet table has said the same or similar things. There’s a consensus that the prognosis for this country in terms of the future material condition of our citizens is not good. If this be the case then, the sin that Obi committed was adding his voice to the possible disastrous outcome from the government’s chosen path and economic policies.
There was nothing that Obi said in his new year message to the government and the people that was not factual. To illustrate, he had said that as a country, “we have fallen from being the largest economy in Africa, with a GDP of $574bn and a per capita income of over $3,500 in 2014, to now ranking fourth on the continent. Our current GDP is less than 50% of what it was a decade ago, standing at approximately $200bn, with a per capita income of barely $1000”. He said that Nigeria remains ”one of the most insecure and least peaceful nations in the world, with countless communities and families displaced from their homes and now living in (internally displaced persons) IDP camps. According to the Global Peace Index (GPI), Nigeria ranks 143rd out of 163 countries in terms of peacefulness – an indication of a high level of distress”. As usual Obi offered suggestions on what could be done differently. He spoke to the need for signalling by government leaders cutting back on their ostentatious lifestyles. He said for the umpteenth time that borrowing should be for investment in targeted regenerative projects. “This”, he said, “will ensure both productivity and the ability to service and amortize such loans, rather than continuing the current practice of accumulating massive debt with no tangible returns, which places undue strain on future development revenue”.
There was nothing that Obi said in his new year message that was not already in the public domain. Obi’s only problem with the government is the force of his moral person and Spartan lifestyle. It’s a notorious fact that the current APC regime has been desperate to dig up dirt to sully Obi. And they have serially failed. Whatever they dug up in the past had failed to stick. So they have resorted to verbal violence ostensibly in preparation for physical harm and possibly applying the Italian Solution. This could only be the reason for the APC accusing Obi of being in their crosshairs. They alleged that Obi was on a mission to incite Nigerians to topple the regime. “Mr. Obi is shooting from the hip. He is not looking or taking an aim. He just shoots widely like Wild-Wild-West movies we used to see back in the day. He is absolutely irrational in his thinking about a man who was governor for eight years and left nothing to remember in Anambra state by way of legacy… he thinks he can bring down the government by simply being maliciously deceptive. I am not somebody to go on the offensive in that manner, but Mr. Obi has CROSSED THE LINE SO MANY TIMES (emphasis mine)…”
What are the dimensions and implications and consequences of crossing the line as the APC has said about Peter Obi? It means that the person has exceeded the limits of what is considered acceptable, reasonable or decent. And that the person has violated a moral, ethical, or social boundary, and by so doing causing harm, offence or discomfort to others. It could also be overstepping physical or emotional limits, invading another person’s private space, or disregarding their feelings. Crossing the line as APC said of Obi could also be interpreted to mean that Obi in his new year message had exceeded his authority or limits as a citizen in calling out the regime; abused his power, position or influence, and acted beyond his legitimate scope or authority. APC is accusing Obi of engaging in unacceptable behaviour which it considered inappropriate, immoral, unprofessional and dishonest. In essence the APC has served a warning to Obi that his frequent crossing of the line will henceforth be addressed through confrontation and/or conflict. What a ruling party! It’s only an immoral and an insecure regime that criminalises free speech and that threatens to use the sledgehammer on a citizen for criticising the government and offering alternative viewpoints on governance. Nigerians will not be intimidated, they will not be silenced either. They have seen off wannabe dictators whether military or civilians. And this regime will not be different.
