Peter Obi

By Mohammed Aliyu

The National Peace Committee, headed by the former Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar (retd.) and other elder statesmen would have been more respected and crucial had they played the committee with the grandeur it deserves. Established in 2014, the committee has not achieved anything following its record. As such, its function is nothing but a jamboree, where aspirants meet and share some private moments, thereby deceiving the gullible who trusted them by their words.

The vulnerability of the committee was so evident in 2019 when one of its members was seen dancing with another aspirant and denouncing the other candidate rather than playing neutral by preaching the peace he claimed to be advocating. Such an immodest attitude alone can create chaos, put doubt in the minds of other aspirants, and ridicule the entire process. Again, no need to mention names but a committee like this ought to have credible individuals that are all respected, who are also mindful of their utterances, actions and even public image – by extension, be less controversial.

To revisit the past, in 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan accepted defeat on his own without any influence from any quarter, as he stated in his book Transitional Hours. In 2019, electorates massively voted for President Buhari, yet no crisis was recorded. Still, the committee’s capacity has not been proven, although they claimed to have calmed Atiku Abubakar, who insistently went to court on his own but failed there.

The 2023 election that brought religion into politics is perhaps dosed with fear of violence, and this is the moment that the peace committee may save the country, but will they? The National Peace Committee is the initiation of some individuals that called themselves ‘Elder Statement’, and members were selected without merit. The peace committee is concerned with only the aftermath of election violence and not other forms of insecurity, let alone proffer solutions to lingering critical issues that the country is bedevilled with now and then. Like the present ASUU strike, agitations, persistent farmer/herder clashes, communal clashes, religious intolerance, and other vital issues that threaten national peace and security that may even not allow any election to hold.

To send a message that the peace committee is not credible, in 2019, PDP presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar failed to attend the accord signing for reasons known to him. Instead, he went after the public ceremony. Bola Tinubu, another aspirant of APC, again failed to attend the September 2022 Peace Accord. Instead, he sent his running mate, Kashim Shettima. All this weakens the credibility and popularity of the committee. The priority given to candidates rather than parties is a clear sign that the peace agreement has lapses that must be corrected if they want to be relevant in the future. Electorates choose a party, not a candidate, even though they are by extension. Candidates are identified by their parties because, without the platform, they are idle. The peace committee must look inward and prioritise party chairpersons during such occasions. That way, they are dealing with an organisation, not an individual.

In my opinion, the National Peace Committee should be changed to the National Council of Elders, and their mandate should be transformed so that it will have a national look and have representatives from all sections of the country. The members should be credible people who are respected. They should advise the government on solutions to bring lasting peace before, during and after the election circle.

However, the interest of the National Peace Committee is not for peace to reign, nor for good governance but for the personal interest of what they may get in the new government. As such, expect nothing but flaws in their shoddy policies. While they are signing the accord in Abuja, I wish my fellow compatriots would do the same locally since we are the anticipated thugs that will cause violence.

Mohammed Aliyu wrote via aliyu.wasilu@gmail.com.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has been conferred with honorary citizenship of the county of Dallas in Texas, United States of America.

Peter Obi disclosed this in a tweet on Wednesday, October 5, 2022.

“Today in Dallas Texas United States, I met with the Mayor of Dallas and his team. I had the privilege of being conferred with the honorary citizenship of Dallas. I also met with a select group of Texas Judges.” He tweeted

Speaking at the ceremony of the conferment, the Mayor of Dallas, Eric Johnson said that the Labour Party presidential candidate shall uphold a place of high esteem in the minds of the people of Dallas city.

“Without a piece of doubt, with this conferment, you shall uphold a place of high esteem in the minds and hearts of the people of this great city (Dallas). Congratulations!,” he said.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

There was a clash between the men of the Nigerian Police Force, NPF, and the supporters of former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, on Saturday. 

According to reports, the police dispersed the supporters of the former governor who gathered at the Pastoral Centre in Abakaliki on Saturday morning for a solidarity march for the Labour Party presidential candidate.

Some of the supporters who spoke to newsmen disclosed that they were harassed and some of their members have been illegally detained by the police. 

However, all efforts to reach the State Police Commissioner, Aliyu Garba, for comments have been futile.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

John Aikpokpo-Martins, the Vice President 1 of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has faulted the absence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmad Tinubu, at the NBA 2022 Conference. 

In a post made on Facebook on Monday, the senior lawyer said, “The failure of Tinubu to be at the NBA conversation is a bold statement.” 

Senator Kashim Shettima, the vice-presidential candidate of APC, represented Tinubu at the NBA 2022 Conference themed “Bold Transition”.

In attendance at the conference were leading presidential candidates for the 2023 election. These include former Nigeria’s vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi and other dignitaries.

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, has accused the way his opponents adopted a negative strategy of trolling and insinuating fake news and misinformation against him and his party.

Obi said this Thursday in his verified Tweeter handle, adding that his opponents create misinformation on social media and deliberately attribute them to him and his party.

The Daily Reality recalls that Obi and the APC Presidential Candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, were engaged in a serious war of words last week.

Obi tweeted, “As we approach the official kick off of the 2023 election campaign, it has become evident that the opposition have adopted a negative strategy of trolling and insinuating fake news and misinformation in the social media space and blaming the Labour Party, its presidential candidate and their supporters of same.

“We remain resolute in our commitment to an issue-based and clean campaign. We will also rebuff all such ploys of deceit and calumny meant to create disaffection among Nigeria’s voting population, who desire credible leadership change. – PO,” he said.

On his part, Tinubu also blamed Obi supporters for mudslinging and spreading fake news against him and other candidates ahead the 2023 general election.

By Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi, PhD

Many good things should have happened to Nigeria, but such good things were and are still averted by Nigerians who feel threatened by others. Our collective psyches teach us to be myopic and to lack reason. These make us promote selfishness, ethnic chauvinism or even other material gains at the expense of the best public interest.

Now that Kwankwaso/Obi ticket has been ethnically killed, I am happy that it didn’t come to fruition. It would have been disastrous to the nation as Peter Obi supporters are turning into something else. Now that it didn’t happen, it left some issues to ponder, especially on our reasoning that it shouldn’t have even been thought of in the first place. It left us with no hope as to the politicians we see, who are a sort of “young” blood, compared to those whose actual age, patriotism, source of wealth and health status are all not certain.

All of us in the North, without a doubt, believe that Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is far better than Obi. They are not comparable in whatever capacity, from academic credentials to practical experience, national spread, political platform and even patriotism. However, one irony about the ticket was that the way Northerners believe in Kwankwaso is similar to how South Easterners believe that Obi is better. They think that Obi is the only answer. In their bid to justify that, they reduced Kwankwaso to pieces, saying he was over-ambitious. This is where they woefully failed. This was what made the thought of bringing the ticket even more worrisome.

Obi’s supporters shouldn’t be blamed, as the country is programmed this way. People only know and promote people they are so much close to, naturally. What will happen if this natural knowledge is mixed with bitter secessionists’ sentiments and arrogance that beclouded their thought of anything if not theirs?

There are some reasons why Kwankwaso shouldn’t have even thought of Obi. Perhaps Kwankwaso did that out of nationalism and as another way of garnering support from the other end. Still, one thing Kwankwaso failed to realize was that Obi’s candidature was no longer his own. It has long been hijacked by a fake Christiandom, Obidients/OBiafrans and other disgruntled politicians from the other end. First, however, let’s consider some points here.

The way Nigeria is, a country with such a vivid religious divide, with Muslims as the majority and Christians with a significant number, the Christians must feel offended if they do not feature as number two, if not number one in the country. In this case, someone may say that democracy is, to some extent, a hoax. If not, why shouldn’t the majority carry the board all the time? But in Nigeria’s situation, Christians are many, and they would feel somehow alienated by the APC’s Muslim/Muslim ticket.

Therefore, it will be a miscalculation for anyone to ask Obi to deputize instead of being the lead. Christians may not take it lightly. They have already fought the Muslim/Muslim ticket and failed, and now the only option left for some of them shouldn’t be tempted or played with. Therefore, looking at it from this angle, it was a terrible idea right from the beginning. Reuben Abati confirmed this in an interview when he opined that, during one of their talks about Kwankwaso/Obi, he asked one question! And the answer to that question, given to him by the NNPP representatives, convinced him that the Kwankwanso/Obi arrangement was dead on arrival.

He asked them, is it fair that after a Northener – and maybe a Muslim – finishes his eight-year tenure, another Northerner will rule again immediately? He said the Kwankwanso/NNPP representatives responded that that is not an issue to worry about. This is their point of reasoning which should be understood.

Another point is regional affiliation. This doesn’t give much, but many Southerners may prefer to have someone healthier than Bola Tinubu, not minding his religion the way the Northerners do. Here, Obi as the lead may be more appealing to them.

On the other hand, there is an issue of the Igbo presidency. Igbo politicians have been too stubborn, divisive and too regional in their approaches to national discourse. They always create problems for themselves, of which Obi’s candidature is part. You can’t disown your country, engage in a series of treasonable felonies, condone crimes, support terrorism against your nation, and then think you would be trusted.

The idea of rallying behind Obi as the only source of salvation is another mistake made by the Igbos. It will make them more stubborn or more alienated. If Obi fails – which will likely happen, some of those overzealous OBiafrans who now threaten all who talk against Obi will surely be more stubborn and restless. And the mainstream politicians would put them aside as they know they are inconsequential.

Now that the ticket has been killed, most commentators agree that it wouldn’t change anything even if it had happened. The real fight is seen to be between the two giants. Now both camps should sheath their swords and forge ahead.

Kwankwaso and his supporters should continue to aim high. Merging with anyone among the two major parties cannot produce a result, and going alone is not the solution. Madugu and his team should think within and outside the box and develop a real solution.

As for Obi’s real supporters, the real Obidients, they should learn tolerance and know that Nigeria is not Imo, Abia or Enugu. Two states’ votes in the North can equal the total number of states in the South-East region. This is based on the latest voter statistics released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which shows that the North has more voters registered in the continuous voter registration that ended last Sunday.

Therefore, these OBidients, including the OBiafrans, should be more civil, tolerant and open-minded. They should interact well with others, show decorum in their manners, and not allow the OBiafrans to lead them.

Dr Muhammad can be reached via @muhammadunfagge (Twitter) or email: muhammadunfagge@yahoo.com.

By Uzair Adam Imam

Sam Omatseye, a veteran journalist, has alleged death threat from the supporters of Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

Omatseye had asked Obi to call his supporters to order in a tweet Tuesday, raising that Obi should be held responsible if anything happened to him.

“Mr. Peter Obi, call your supporters to order. They are calling and issuing death threats. If anything happens to me, you will be held responsible!,” he tweeted.

The Daily Reality learned that this was however coming barely 24 hours after Omatseye’s latest article in The Nation newspaper titled ‘Obi-tuary’.

It was gathered that Omatseye in the piece described Obi as a shelter for miscreants, saying, “Obi has turned out to be an excuse for even closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it.

“This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd.”

By Mubarak Shu’aib

Ask most people why countries break apart, and many will say that different groups sharing a single country naturally dislike and distrust one another. For example, Yugoslavia fragmented because the Serbs and Croats and then the Bosnian Muslims started to fight each other after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ethiopia recently descended into civil war because its various ethnic groups – the Tigrayans, Amharans, and those from the Sidama region- each wanted government control. So fundamental ethnic and religious differences must be the cause of all these conflicts.

Nigerians have a lot at stake in answer to this question. Our country has become increasingly divided, with ethnicity now playing a central role in debates over where the presidency should go come 2023. Could the country travail through these adversaries and polarisations?

It turns out that the differences themselves do not lead to violence. This is the finding of political scientists who have studied hundreds of ethnic conflicts worldwide. Almost all countries are multi-ethnic and religious, yet few experience crises.

For a society to fracture along identity lines, you need mouthpieces – influential people willing to make discriminatory appeals and pursue discriminatory policies in the name of a particular group. They provoke and harness feelings of fear as a way to lock in an ethnic constituency that will support their scramble power. These mouthpieces are often politicians seeking to gain or maintain control. Still, they can also include business elites (seeking brand loyalty), religious leaders (seeking to expand their followers), and media figures (seeking to grow their audience). 

Separate and hostile ethnic identities don’t exist in a vacuum; they need to be crafted, and these individuals rise to do just that. They’re often at a high risk of losing power or have recently lost it. Seeing another route to securing their futures, they cynically exploit divisions to try to reassert control. We see such figures on our social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook etc.). And they’re more dangerous than what we’ve been led to believe.  Experts have a term for these instigators of conflict: ethnic entrepreneurs.

The term was first used in the 1990s in Yugoslavia, but ethnic entrepreneurs have emerged many times over in all parts of the world. Though the catalyst for conflict is often ostensibly something else – the economy, freedom of religion – ethnic entrepreneurs make the fight expressly about their position and status in society. Harnessing the power of media, they work to convince citizens that they are under threat from an out-group and must band together under the entrepreneur to counter the threat. They also try to persuade those in their group, often with incendiary language, that they are superior and “deserve” to dominate. They (ethnic entrepreneurs), at rallies, symposia, places of worship and town hall meetings, cast aspersions on some ethnic and religious groups.

So why do average Nigerians let themselves be swept along this rhetoric? Perhaps surprisingly, they are often clear-eyed about ethnic entrepreneurs. They know these individuals have their agenda and are not telling the whole truth. Many Igbos did not trust, let alone love, Peter Obi, who was a running mate to Atiku Abubakar a few years earlier (2019). But they’re now willing to show support after a mounting threat to their lives, livelihoods, families, or futures. Over time, the OBidients’ rhetorics and increasing ethnic biases steadily sowed doubts. After silencing the disloyal journalists and media outlets, they plied their audiences with unrelenting messages of fear and suspicion.

These ethnic entrepreneurs are now thriving. But they emerged out of nowhere. In fact,  from the #EndSARS protesters, some of these ethnic entrepreneurs have metamorphosis into #OBIdients. Unfortunately, Mr Obi is relying on their appeals to win the presidency. Albeit with a coded language.

Religion is next. To secure the support of Evangelical leaders and their increasingly mobilised voters, the ObIdients stake more and more pro-life positions. Moral imperatives and cultural identities are now, more than ever, driving voting patterns. 

From appealing to core policy concerns and stoking anxiety where it’s not required, these ethnic entrepreneurs are using different tools to upset the country’s political atmosphere. 

They rightly do so by exacerbating issues on social media. Deborah’s murder is a case study. Twitter exploded, Facebook went mainstream, and social media became an ever-present part of our lives.

Critically, a network of these gleeful ethnic entrepreneurs realised that they could gain ratings and influence by emphasising online tension. As a result, media titans such as SAHARA Reporters, who rely on ratings and clicks, feed us increasingly polarised content.

Into this political morass stepped in Peter Obi. In his bid for power, he realised that appeals to identity could galvanise his political base.  So now, he embraced identity politics explicitly and with gusto.

Obi intuitively understood that the deep feeling of alienation among many Igbo voters could carry him to power.  Although he’s too clever to factor much into the division like other ethnic entrepreneurs, he resorted to radicalising the previous administrations he’s part of as a two-time governor of Anambra State.

Although he remained an underdog in the race, his movement is a future incentive for other ethnic entrepreneurs who are now studying his playbook and will, without a doubt, use it to try to catapult themselves into the Villa in the nearest future. They will build on the momentum, and they will do so by manufacturing threats, fomenting even more ethnic fear, and convincing Igbos that they genuinely are in the midst of an existential fight. How far will these ethnic entrepreneurs go? How far will we let them?

Mubarak Shu’aib writes from Hardawa, Misau LGA, Bauchi State, via naisabur83@gmail.com.

By Ambali Abdulkabeer

I understand Dino Melaye is a serial political clown who doesn’t deserve much attention. Yet there’s a need to say a few words about his recent cringe-worthy video targeted at Peter Obi.

In the viral video, Dino argued that Nigeria’s problem is beyond cutting governance costs. He said that with all confidence. Ignorant.

Nigeria is what it is today due to a lack of financial prudence in the political firmament. For instance, a report emerged that President Muhammadu Buhari travelled 11 times in five months. However, if you carefully research the trips facilitated with the country’s hard-earned money, you may discover that not all the trips would demand the President and his needless entourage.

Ahmed Lawan, the President of the Senate, in a lecture titled ‘The Legislature, Legislative Mandate and People – The Reality and the Public Perception’ and presented during the First Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture Series organised by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies last year, clarified the salaries of members of the National Assembly.

“The total salary of a member of the Senate is about N1.5m while that of the House of Representatives is about N1.3m.

“The average office running cost for a senator is about N13m while that of a member of the House of Representatives is N8m”, Lawan said in the robust paper.

When calculated, the N13m office running cost for a senator amounts to N52m per annum, while the N8m for a member of the House of Representatives amounts to N32m in a year.

Plus salary, this means that each Senator goes home with 70 million and House of Reps member with 47.6 million annually.

Don’t let us talk about the salaries and allowances of the President, Vice President, Ministers and others. A waste of time!

Then the big question is, how much does a diligent civil servant get annually, or even in his entire 35 years in service? You can answer that!

And don’t forget this country is abysmally run through heavy loans upon loans. So if any country in the world must cut governance costs to attend to its multifarious crises, it should be Nigeria.

There is nothing wrong with Dino canvassing support for Atiku Abubakar. But to say that the only solution now is the unity of Nigeria is problematic. It’s even self-delusion to tip a former vice president as the best man for the job! If we are united (which I think it’s untenable given our slapdash approach to leadership), the country needs people who are genuinely financially prudent to survive. Not these endlessly grasping ‘agbada men’ carting away its resources.

It must also be said that whether or not Peter Obi is manageable for the country at the moment, Nigerians have the liberty to decide in 2023. It would be fair, however, to remind us that our country needs a better future.

The Danish poet and social critic Soren Kierkegaard was right when he said, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” So while they should embrace the fact that the country needs a genuine president, Nigerians should not be fooled into believing cutting governance costs isn’t a solution.

Ambali Abdulkabeer writes from Ilorin. He can be reached via abdulkabeerambali@gmail.com.

By Hassan Ahmad Usman

To begin, I would like my readers to understand that, unlike games, there is no “cheat code” for good governance. Governance is practical, with little room for derailing if the desired outcome must be achieved. If there is anything that President Buhari-led’s administration taught us, it is to shun unrealistic optimism.  There is nothing wrong with setting standards for our leaders or being optimistic about the prospects of their leadership.  

At the inauguration of Buhari in 2015, one would believe by now that he is rounding off his eight years stay, our four refineries would be functional, the epileptic power supply would be a thing of the past, security tackled, and so many things accomplished. 

Notwithstanding, people overlook many landmark achievements by his administration. Why? Unrealistic optimism. They are not the standards we set for him from the on set. In a year, we’ll have a new president, new administration and new policy makers. In between, we’ll have an election that will bring a new government.

The leading candidates so far are former vice president Atiku Abukar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP),  former Lagos state governor Bola Tinubu of All progressives Congress (APC) and former Anambra state governor Peter Obi of the Labour party (LP). These candidates are enjoying a large support base. 

My candid advice to the “Batists”, “Atikulateds”, and the “OBIdients” is to learn from the travails the Buharists went through in his defence. They marketed Buhari to the extent that we thought only miracles would better his performance in office, and failure was an impossibility in our imaginations.  We again gave him another chance despite his dissatisfaction with his first term because the Saraki/Dogara-led National Assembly was a block to his reform agendas. They also told us that the 2016 economic recession was a catastrophe due to the then-ever-falling oil prices. With these excuses, whether acceptable or not, we should understand that there won’t be a smooth ride for any president in a developing economy like ours.

So, I remind those supporters to moderate their optimism and understand and study what development is all about in modern civilization. It is not as easy as we thought. It would be best if you weren’t in defence of your candidate throughout his stay in office.  

Nigeria had her chance to turn things around when the oil price was at its highest. Unfortunately, indecisions and a lack of foresight from the leaders made it impossible. We are now living to bear the brunts of the indecisions of our past leaders. 

To Nigerians, we should understand that good governance that translates into sustainable growth and development cannot be achieved through “quick-fix” solutions. It’ll take longer than expected time for it to manifest. We’ve read and heard of the turnaround of countries like China and the United Arab Emirates but never paid attention to the processes they passed through before making it to the big stage. If development is what we all crave, we must all make sacrifices that come with it and know that we may not be the immediate beneficiaries of our own strides. 

Hassan Ahmad Usman writes from Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.  He can be reached via basree177@gmail.com.