Before the 2023 General election Peter Obi secretly went to the grave of Sir Ahmadu Bello to ask for his guidance. How far did the corrupted spirit of Ahmadu Bello guide him to win the 2023 Presidential election? The same Peter Obi later openly went to the grave of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to request the same guidance. Did the spirit of the dead Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa take any notice of Peter Obi in the Presidential election?
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe
Chinua Achebe in his iconic novel Things Fall Apart presented his main character Okonkwo in the following most deserved encomium:
“He was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood. In Umuofia’s latest war he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head; and he was not old yet. On great occasions such as the funeral of a village celebrity he drank his palm-wine from his first human head.”
Indeed, to most Nigerians desirous of the most urgent positive change in Nigeria’s putrid political leadership penultimate the ill-fated 2023 General Elections, that was their vision of the man called Peter Obi, who lately emerged as their Robinson Crusoe’s political “Man Friday” against the oppressive Nigerian politicians. Unfortunately unlike Robinson Crusoe’s Man Friday who dedicatedly served his master to the end without fault, Peter Obi, like his kinsman Chinua Achebe’s character Okonkwo, consequently turned out to be driven by over-blown arrogance woven in limbless and toothless Obidient Movement swagger.
Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart felt that because his Umuofia people sang to his praise for beating Amalinze the cat in a wrestling contest and, as Chinua Achebe put it, his “fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan,” his self-conceited ambition would now override the collective interest of his Umuofia people. This is the current opinion of Peter Obi, even though he has not thrown any Amalinze the cat in any national political wrestling bout.
Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart ironically felt that because he brought five human heads from “inter-tribal” wars and drank palm wine from the skull of the first head he killed, he could willingly disobey the customs and tradition of his people by beating his wife during the “week of peace.” But the Blessed Priestess of the Great Agbala Deity clearly made him to understand that he could not be above the deified laws of the land.
Even though Peter Obi has not evidently cut any human head in any inter-tribal war between his Agulu town and any town in Anambra State, the current state of both his political body language and his dubious action of kneeling before King of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a Holy Christian Land—the Vatican City, where only the Christian Deities and the Pope are qualified to receive such level of adoration is a clear indication of the Okonkwo mentality in him.
Of course a stanza of “Our Lord’s Prayer” says: “thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.” This is the perfect interpretation of the disgraceful bouncing of Peter Obi by members of the Papal Security Service when his kinsman Cardinal Francis Arinze attempted to smuggle him through the VIP entrance, where he could have had the opportunity for a showman pontifical handshake.
In other words, the same way Peter Obi was rejected at Vatican even with the assistance of the most important Igbo man in Vatican City Cardinal Francis Arinze, the same way Nigerians, especially the true Christians, have rejected him, even with both his disgraceful impetuous kneeling before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and, his now quisling political alliance promenade with the detestable leaders of Nigerian Amalekites and Philistines represented by the murderous Atiku Abubakar and Nasil el-Rufai.
Indeed there is no doubting the fact that such intellectual political actor as the indomitable Prof Pat Utomi who is even much closer to Bola Ahmed Tinubu than Peter Obi, will not for any reason of his political ambition descend so low as to kneel before such a detestable Philistine political Baal. At worse Pat Utomi would avoid any scene that would bring him closer to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
As a noble son of Aniomaland fighting in the best traditions of his indomitable Ekumeku ancestors, he chose to continue the fight against political injustice in Nigeria from the trenches; instead choosing to lick the feet of those he has sworn fight against for the collective interest of down-trodden Nigerians. This is the model of political leadership Nigerians need at this crucial moment of their history and, not the like of Peter Obi who thinks that kneeling before the collective enemy of the oppressed Nigerians is an act of political smartness.
Although there is no land without lizard as there will always be a Judas Iscariot among every twelve Apostles, as in the case of Dr. Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa, the Igbo of West Niger are both institutionally principled politically and, morally self-judgmental. Indeed the recent public rejection of Dr. Okowa by the small town of Idumuasaa, when he attempted to explain his reason for decamping to the politically decadent APC, was a tip of the iceberg of what Anioma people stand for and, which is abundantly lacking among their Southeast Igbo kinsmen. This also accounted for why Senator Alhaji Ned Nwoko has reverted to his proper political level after his abortive “Anioma State for Southeast Geopolitical Zone” campaign.
But for Peter Obi and his Southeast Igbo kinsmen who believe there is no morality in self-conceited political ambitions, worshipping the Philistine Baal and aligning with political Amalekites and Philistines against the collective will of their people and those Nigerians who once received the spikes of the enemy for supporting Peter Obi’s political ambition, does not matter to them in moral terms, so long as it concerns their selfish political ambitions.
It does not matter to Peter Obi that the same Bola Ahmed Tinubu he knelt before, in the eyes of the whole world leaders who consider him as an illegitimate President and, the revered Roman Catholic Church Deities in Rome, is instrumental to the on-going genocide against Christians in Nigeria today.
It does not matter to Peter Obi in concert with the hordes of his blind Obidient followers that the same Bola Ahmed Tinubu he knelt before on the most Holy Land of the same Roman Catholic Church he professes, was the same man who fraudulently rigged himself into the current precipitous political leadership in Nigeria against him.
It does not matter to Peter Obi that if a mad man is not ashamed dancing naked in the village square, his kinsmen, friends and well-wishers are. May be Peter Obi does not understand that his action before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Roma is like dancing naked in the Village Square. If he does not know, we are now telling him that that was exactly what he did.
Is Peter Obi telling the throng of Nigerians who supported him in 2023 Presidential Election that his alliance with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, two pivotal unrepentant Fulani jihadists that watch the on-going killing of Christians in Nigeria, is not a curse? Mallam Nasir el-Rufai for eight years as Governor of Kaduna State watched the slaughter of hundreds of defenseless Southern Kaduna indigenous Christians by his Fulani ethnic kinsmen, displacing and confiscating their ancestral lands at the same time.
How would Peter Obi mount the political rostrum with Nasir el-Rufai before the people of Southern Kaduna and campaign for their support? Is this not a clear case of subversion against the collective will of Nigerian Christians?
If Peter Obi is not aware of this heinous escapade of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, sensible Nigerian Christians, including the people of Southern Kaduna, are aware. If Peter Obi knows but has forgotten, the people of Southern Kaduna and indeed majority of Nigerian Christians with keen sense historical consciousness have not forgotten.
If Peter Obi is not inordinately ambitious with reckless gangrene of ideological bankruptcy he should have known that majority of Nigerians, particularly the besieged Christians who are currently facing untold jihadist carnage by armed Fulani herdsmen and bandits have no more political business to do with any Fulani man in any matter relating to the Presidency of the Nigerian nation. So Peter Obi forming any alliance with Atiku Abubakar is a forlorn political adventurism.
Atiku Abubakar rejected his first daughter for converting to Christianity. Atiku Abubakar fired his Igbo-born Personal Assistant for condemning the lynching of Miss Deborah Samuel by irate Muslim youth in Sokoto. Atiku Abubakar was among the first Muslim leaders to threaten the people of Uromi for eliminating the armed Muslim bandits miscalled hunters. Atiku Abubakar up till this moment has not one day condemned the atrocious activities of his Fulani herdsmen and bandits. What does Peter Obi take the Christians of Nigeria to be; his political robots?
How can Christians continued to be slaughtered by the Muslim Fulani and Peter Obi is heartlessly showcasing the leaders of the same Fulani murderers as his decadent political allies? Is that how to be a devout Roman Catholic Christian? Peter Obi should be rightly informed that Nigeria is not Anambra State where he played the bigoted politics of Catholics versus Anglicans to become Governor.
Peter Obi should rightly be informed that the demography that germinated the Obidient Movement which closely molded him into a political cult-leader no longer exists. It was that political demography that prompted somebody like me to stake my neck for him without any financial inducement. Regrettably, Peter Obi’s chameleonic display of tainted religious piety was the major factor that rendered that political demography unworkable this time. Peter Obi believes that with his trader-sense of smartness he can make political omelette without breaking the egg of concerted opposition against a roguish government.
There is indeed no denying the fact that the Igbo as a people have very short memory, especially in matters of political ambition. This is the case with Peter Obi, who is currently being driven to political oblivion by the currents of limbless flattery and overbearing carriage of political ego.
Does Peter Obi think that come 2027 that an INEC Chairman appointed by President Bola Tinubu will preside over his defeat in the Presidential election? Does Peter Obi think that come 2027 that this same Judiciary led by a Yoruba Muslim Chief Justice of the Federation will preside over President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s loss in the Supreme Court?
Unfortunately Peter Obi cannot think this way, having been carried away by the caustic Igbo assumption that once an Igbo is given a political position he erroneously assumes that his opinion promptly represents the collective opinion of the entire Igbo. Peter Obi is therefore hallucinating if he assumes that his opinion stands for the collective opinion of all the Nigerians that stood up for him under the banner of Obidient Movement in 2023.
Peter Obi telling Nigerians that he only dislikes President Bola Tinubu’s policies and not President Bola Tinubu as a person is like someone saying that he only dislikes the poison that killed a child and not the man who gave the child the poison. This roguish assumption can only come out of a roguish political leader; and this is what Peter Obi has assumed at the present moment.
This is the assumption of a political coward and opportunist which Peter Obi has come to represent in the eyes of many Nigerians today. If this is not the case, how can we explain Peter Obi’s dumb silence over the gale of defections of Labour Party Stalwarts both in and outside the National Assembly? Does that matter to him as a political leader whose political fortune rests on the fulcrum of populism? No! Such defections cannot matter to him so long as he has bands of ethnically corrupted sycophants who will always be there to treat him as their political Baal and, be ready to rain abuses on anyone who dares to call him to order.
As it stands at the moment, Peter Obi, working in tandem with the quisling tradition of Igbo political leaders before him is the leading political albatross against Igbo political emancipation in the current Nigerian political setting.
We had expected him to play the role of Nelson Mandela in changing the current precipitous political order. But like a typical Onitsha trader who places his material wealth before God, it seems his sprawling material wealth are strongly acting as political incubus against him; otherwise where on earth had a professed opposition leader in any political settling, whether democratic or undemocratic, knelt before the same person he was opposing in the most subservient and slavish manner as Peter Obi did before Bola Tinubu in Vatican City? Was that not a clear political subversion against the people who trusted in his political leadership?
It is even more recklessly disheartening that the current wave of kidnapping and slaughter of Christians by Islamic jihadists led by the Fulani are not the least of concern for Peter Obi outside his inordinate ambition to become the President of Nigeria. How can such person stand up to declare himself a Christian patriot? Is it by donating millions of naira to Catholic sisters and mothers or by licking the stinking feet of his political Satan?
Before the 2023 General election Peter Obi secretly went to the grave of Sir Ahmadu Bello to ask for his guidance. How far did the corrupted spirit of Ahmadu Bello guide him to win the 2023 Presidential election? The same Peter Obi later openly went to the grave of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to request the same guidance. Did the spirit of the dead Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa take any notice of Peter Obi in the Presidential election?
Did the same Peter Obi at any moment contemplate going to the graves of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Akanu Ibiam, Michael Okpara and Major General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi to request for similar guidance? Can’t we see that the slavery status the Igbo protest against today in Nigeria is self-induced slavery status by their political leadership?
This is historically obvious from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, through Major General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, Lt. Col Chkwuemeka Ojukwu, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Christian C. Onoh, Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe, Dr. Michael Okpara, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Chief nnia Nwodo, Prof George Obiozor, to the current class of ideologically bankrupt Igbo leaders represented by Senators Orji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okorocha, Hope Uzodinma and, his co-Southeast State Governors. All the men mentioned above had at one stage or the other licked the stinking ass of Fulani oligarchy just to fulfill their inordinate political ambitions.
That Peter Obi is a political mole among the Igbo in the worst traditions of Igbo leaders mentioned above and, a wolf in sheep’s clothing among the Christians of the Nigerian nation, is an incontrovertible truism.
If Peter Obi thinks that his inordinate ambition is worth more than the current state of insecurity in Nigeria, where the life of a Christian citizen is worth less than the life of a Fulani cow, then let us wait and see how far he would go about it. But the fact remains that if Peter Obi thinks it is going to be business as usual in the same tradition of the Obidient Movement of 2023, he is only day-dreaming.
•Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe is the Odogwu of Ibusa, Delta State and President, International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN). He was former Director, Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. Email: Nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com
•Opinions, positions or thoughts expressed here are personal and strictly of the writer/author and do not represent the views of The Daily Crucible.
