To Be Fair To Peter Obi, By Anas Sani Dukura
To be true to myself, that viral leaked audio of Mr. Peter Obi, (the LP presidential candidate in the recent concluded election) begging Bishop David Oyedepo to canvass Christian support for him because this (referring to the 2023 presidential elections) is a “religious war” didn’t come to me as a shock. In fact, I couldn’t waste my time listening to it until when I saw people making issue out of it. If NOT that Nigerians enjoy fantasying pretense, there’s nothing surprising about it. Everyone in Nigeria knows that the figures from the presidential election results clearly removes every doubt that Peter Obi hurricane was about religion and region.
Has any of you paused to think of how a party with no structure whatsoever could gather six million votes, pulling 98% of votes from Enugu, Abia, and Anambra states leaving the two national parties to share the 2%? Some would argue it’s a regional sentiment. Well, how comes then Peter Obi cleared Nasarawa and Plateau states in the north and got almost 300k votes in Kaduna? The fact is this whole thing is about religion. Churches mobilized heavily for Peter Obi because he’s theirs. It is a fact no one will dismiss. If anyone look at you and tell you it’s about competence or integrity, please ask him how Peter Obi is more competent than Atiku, for instance. Beside, he was Atiku’s vice presidential candidate in 2019 and we didn’t see such a hurricane.
The fact is Governor Peter Obi wasn’t different from the rest in whatever indices except that he enjoys the goodwill of overzealous young Igbos who believe Aso Villa is long overdue for Igbos, and overall Nigerian Christians who aren’t happy with both the ruling All Progressives Congress as well as the opposition Peoples Democratic Party for placing Muslims, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar GCON (Wazirin Adamawa) as their candidates to take over from the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari GCFR who’s equally a Muslim.
But on the other hand, do you blame Christians or the churches for mobilizing for theirs? I think NO! And if anyone will point an accusing finger at them, I believe that won’t be us, the northern Muslims. Because we also do the same. In fact, it is something we’ve been doing since 2003. The only difference is we don’t usually do it in silence like the Christians did now. If we support, we do so openly, both our elites and the downtrodden. Not only on the eve of the election, we begin to mobilize for the candidate. No! We don’t do that. So, all this while, all Nigerians usually vote along ethnic and religious sentiments. Just that Christians wanted to silently outsmart us this time around.
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I was telling someone who was blaming Igbos (and by extension christians) for standing and identifying with theirs that this fanatical following was what we all spent a decade and half doing for ours, Buhari. To buttress this point, Buhari contested four times; he got 12 million votes against President Obasanjo’s 24 million votes in 2003 but got only 6 million (representing 18%) votes against Umaru Yaradua’s 24 million votes in 2007 and again, got 12 million votes against President Jonathan’s 22 million votes in 2011. We all know he got only 6 million votes in 2007 because he was contesting against a fellow Muslim.
So to be fair to Peter Obi, what he did is neither strange nor in contradiction with what most (of not all) Nigerian politicians do to appeal to sentiments of Nigerians. He only wanted to bank on Christian votes and take his luck to Aso Villa since there are three popular Muslim presidential candidates. We all do that! Take for instance Kaduna, as much Gov. Elrufai is seeing as secularly-oriented person, he had to use religious sentiment in 2019 to win his re—election, a mechanism he used again to smuggle in Uba Sani now. With leaked audio or without, we all know how we play our politics. No need for false pretense!
The president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose a Muslim running mate, Kashim Shettima to appeal to Muslim sentiments in the North because he knew what would’ve happened if he were to choose a Christian from the North. And alas! We all witnessed how these politicians rallied Islamic clerics and how some of the clerics sold the ticket to the Muslims. So that’s what we all do. Just that in Hausa, there’s this adage that said “barawon da baa kama ba sunan shi Muhammadu” meaning a thief that’s not caught yet can be seeing ‘the best’.
There was a governor who said his state is a Christian state (so muslims have no stake whatsoever) and that’s not because there are no Muslims in the state. No! He only believed that the number isn’t significant to cause him any issue. The fact is we are heavily polarized along ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria. I thought 2015 had taught us some lessons since 90% of Muslims opted for muslim Buhari because they believed christian Jonathan allowed Boko Haram to finish them. Unfortunately for us, we were killed and terrorized more under the watch of someone we see as ‘ours’.
But we didn’t learn any lesson. Igbos and Christians still think only theirs will feel their pain (if any). Muslims, too. Since that’s the only reason APC is re—elected again after all the atrocities it meted on Nigerians ranging from hard economic situation to worsening insecurity to. From Peter Obi, who heavily relied on christian votes, to Tinubu who freely subdued christians because he felt they weren’t very important in his project, and to Atiku who played it culturally and typically of PDP since 1999 to every other candidate, everyone is free to canvass support from whatever angle he believes will take him to Aso Villa.
If poor man refused to learn that there exist only two parties; one belonging to bourgeoisies and the other belonging to proletariats, he’ll continue to be taken for a ride.
Thank you daddy, for reading my piece. I leave you in peace!
Anas Muhammad Sani (@UncleAnass) can be reached via [email protected]
