After my last Facebook post analyzing Peter Obi’s Labour Party chance in the next presidential election, I received a lot of flaks from friends and followers for concluding that his chance is indeed bleak. The common phrases that were thrown at me include ‘jaundice analysis’, ‘warped reasoning’ and ‘lazy thinking’. I have sympathy for these friends, many of whom are wary of the two major political parties and see in Obi a chance to change the trajectory of our country.

I agree with them that much. Our country indeed needs to change. We need a break. In the last seven years or so, everything that could go wrong with our country has gone wrong and worsened. The economy has tanked. Public education is increasingly being abandoned for the desperately poor who have no choice. Insecurity has become the norm and people are now inured to the heartrending stories of kidnappings, bombings and killings.

The government has so far failed to tackle these problems. Outside the perfunctory press statements from Garba Shehu and Femi Adeshina, there is no sign that the government is aware of the difficulty ordinary Nigerians face, much less how to provide real solutions. So we indeed need a change. But while Obi may represent the true fiscal discipline and economic know-how that our country desperately needs, he lacks the political muscle to get elected and push his agenda.
Here is why.

What we practise in Nigeria is regarded as identity politics. Ethno-religious factors triumph over political ideology and economic know-how. This, in simple English, means that people vote based on ethnic and religious considerations more than any other factor.

In the 1979 and 1983 elections, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr Nnamdi Azikwe were the more knowledgeable presidential candidates on the ballot. They both had a string of university degrees, had written books and had well-articulated positions on the economy and politics. That meant little in the elections.

The political parties of both men were regarded as representing the western and eastern regions respectively and so had little support in the north. It didn’t matter that Awolowo was an economic wizard who could have put Nigeria on the development map, or that Zik was a liberal with no provincial bone in his body. They lost. Twice. So, being intelligent and saying the right things don’t get people elected nationally in Nigeria. Even a pedigree of accomplishments doesn’t guarantee success in national polls. If it did, Awolowo or Zik would have been elected as president ahead of Shehu Shagari.

The reason for this, if you ask me, is that the Nigerian identity is weak. If you ask people to categorize their identities in order of priority, their ethnicity, religion, and perhaps gender and political affiliation would come ahead of the Nigerian identity. So people tend to have an affinity for political parties that are regarded as ‘’our own,’’ which have been adopted by significant members of their ethnic group.

This is why the political revolution which happened in France with Emmanuel Macron in 2017 is unlikely to occur in Nigeria just yet. France is a highly civilized country with a high literacy rate. Most citizens of the country consider themselves French before anything else. So, what was important to the French voters were the issues of the economy, immigration, continued integration with Europe and so on. Macron has a better grasp of these issues and was therefore elected twice.

That is not the case with Nigeria. A lot of our people are uneducated and un-empowered, and so seek immediate gratifications during elections. They actively seek and get bribed to vote. This is not even an open secret. It is therefore very unlikely for a candidate to win a presidential election based on a superior argument alone. Cash triumphs over reason and long-term good.

Back to Obi, it is hard to see how he can win with the arguments I articulated above, in addition to his lack of widespread support across the country. Yes, his candidacy is trending online and appears to have become owned by young Nigerians and the ‘#EndSARS’ generation. But I am not swayed. Real electioneering is a different kettle of fish compared to going viral on social media.

Sure, Obi will make a significant impact, similar to what President Muhammadu Buhari made pre-APC when he contested three times and lost. Even then, Buhari had more entrenched support in the north than Obi does have now in the south. Yet, he lost three times. He only managed to win when he became pragmatic and aligned with ‘strange bed fellows’ – other political parties – to form the APC, a party with national spread and support]/b].

[b]The enthusiasm of Obi’s supporters today is similar to that of Buhari’s pre-APC. With Buhari easily filling up stadia in Zaria and Maiduguri, his fanatical supporters could not but wonder how he lost with such ‘massive support’. They were fooled by the optics. Outside his home base, the then Candidate Buhari lacked critical support in far-flung places such as Okrika (in Rivers state), Southern Ijaw (in Bayelsa state) and Bende (in Abia), among other places in the south.

Obi’s supporters are in a similar bind, convinced by the swelling online and offline support that their candidate is destined for Aso Rock. But ask them, who is canvassing for Obi in Fika local government in Yobe, for instance? Or in Gassol local government in Taraba? Who would get out the votes for him in those places? No one?

The fact is no candidate can win the presidential election without substantial political investments and support from across the country. As it stands now, Obi does not have that depth and plurality of support and so, cannot win.

So, I restate that for the opposition to have a chance in 2023, they would need to do what all the legacy parties that gave birth to the APC did pre-2015: merge and support one strong presidential candidate. Outside that, they stand no chance.

https://www.thecable.ng/why-candidate-obi-may-fail/amp

Give it to obi supporters when it comes to backward reasoning .....all dey have in their head is obi will win but if u ask them hw dey will say he has majority of d youth supporting him, I have more than 7 friends living close to each other that we hang out together almost everyday and we all r supporting tinubu so when dey say majority of youth I just laugh bcoz I know dey r judging base on d online noise which so many won't even vote at d end of d day

Trying is another form of winning.



Goodluck Jonathan won Buhari in the 2011 general election. To think Peter Obi doesn't stand a chance is less beyond reality.


With your vote for true and real change, HE CAN!

I love the fact that everyone is now talking about Obi,it shows that he is a major contender.

It is no longer a business as usual for APC and PDP.

2023 is for Peter Obi, haters will turn to believers.

Factos, Nigeria political reality isn't about competence. It never has been.

So Obi shouldn't waste the youths vote and that if his region, select one of the two bad candidates and merge.

Maxymilliano:


https://www.thecable.ng/why-candidate-obi-may-fail/amp

we will get there soon now is pvc moblisation period every youth need get one.

Lolz.... so what if he loses?

This stuppid idea that we must not vote right cos we are afraid that the person(s) we vote for "will" not win is one of the lies used by these oppressor politicians to hold us back for too long.

After agreeing that the 2 parties and their Presidential candidates are thrash, you advice us not to vote for a candidate that is not just their opposite but is likely to turn things around cos "he cannot win".

Bury your unsolicited and useless advice plzz. This time around we will vote RIGHT. Even if it means "wasting" our votes. It is about our conscience here. About our future. About our country.

Moreover, we need to make a strong point to thè useless Political elites in this country that we are botb aware and strong. We have woken up!! We will project Power with our doggerness, mobilization and PVC(votes) this time around. After all, Power is what these old politicians understand.

And even if Obi does not win in 2023, we would have won.

PS: Obi is actually building a movement that can win the 2023 elections. And he has a BASE. That is what is different from other 3rd alternative force before now.

I align with the writer, Peter Obi is the best presidential candidate that can move Nigeria forward, but since the labor party does not have strong political structures, it will be difficult for him to win the presidential election, many electorate vote based on religion, ethnicity and more importantly, their stomach.

Bomboiy:
I love the fact that everyone is now talking about Obi,it shows that he is a major contender.

It is no longer a business as usual for APC and PDP.

2023 is for Peter Obi, haters will turn to believers.

"Major Contender" using the platform below? Right now , and for the purpose of 2023 election, Tinubu and Atiku's campaign team do not even know Obi and Labour apart exists.

Look below to see where Obi's political prostitution, weakness, lack of fighting spirit and cowardice got him. Losers paradise lol.

Maxymilliano:


After my last Facebook post analyzing Peter Obi’s Labour Party chance in the next presidential election, I received a lot of flaks from friends and followers for concluding that his chance is indeed bleak. The common phrases that were thrown at me include ‘jaundice analysis’, ‘warped reasoning’ and ‘lazy thinking’. I have sympathy for these friends, many of whom are wary of the two major political parties and see in Obi a chance to change the trajectory of our country.

I agree with them that much. Our country indeed needs to change. We need a break. In the last seven years or so, everything that could go wrong with our country has gone wrong and worsened. The economy has tanked. Public education is increasingly being abandoned for the desperately poor who have no choice. Insecurity has become the norm and people are now inured to the heartrending stories of kidnappings, bombings and killings.

The government has so far failed to tackle these problems. Outside the perfunctory press statements from Garba Shehu and Femi Adeshina, there is no sign that the government is aware of the difficulty ordinary Nigerians face, much less how to provide real solutions. So we indeed need a change. But while Obi may represent the true fiscal discipline and economic know-how that our country desperately needs, he lacks the political muscle to get elected and push his agenda.
Here is why.

What we practise in Nigeria is regarded as identity politics. Ethno-religious factors triumph over political ideology and economic know-how. This, in simple English, means that people vote based on ethnic and religious considerations more than any other factor.

In the 1979 and 1983 elections, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr Nnamdi Azikwe were the more knowledgeable presidential candidates on the ballot. They both had a string of university degrees, had written books and had well-articulated positions on the economy and politics. That meant little in the elections.

The political parties of both men were regarded as representing the western and eastern regions respectively and so had little support in the north. It didn’t matter that Awolowo was an economic wizard who could have put Nigeria on the development map, or that Zik was a liberal with no provincial bone in his body. They lost. Twice. So, being intelligent and saying the right things don’t get people elected nationally in Nigeria. Even a pedigree of accomplishments doesn’t guarantee success in national polls. If it did, Awolowo or Zik would have been elected as president ahead of Shehu Shagari.

The reason for this, if you ask me, is that the Nigerian identity is weak. If you ask people to categorize their identities in order of priority, their ethnicity, religion, and perhaps gender and political affiliation would come ahead of the Nigerian identity. So people tend to have an affinity for political parties that are regarded as ‘’our own,’’ which have been adopted by significant members of their ethnic group.

This is why the political revolution which happened in France with Emmanuel Macron in 2017 is unlikely to occur in Nigeria just yet. France is a highly civilized country with a high literacy rate. Most citizens of the country consider themselves French before anything else. So, what was important to the French voters were the issues of the economy, immigration, continued integration with Europe and so on. Macron has a better grasp of these issues and was therefore elected twice.

That is not the case with Nigeria. A lot of our people are uneducated and un-empowered, and so seek immediate gratifications during elections. They actively seek and get bribed to vote. This is not even an open secret. It is therefore very unlikely for a candidate to win a presidential election based on a superior argument alone. Cash triumphs over reason and long-term good.

Back to Obi, it is hard to see how he can win with the arguments I articulated above, in addition to his lack of widespread support across the country. Yes, his candidacy is trending online and appears to have become owned by young Nigerians and the ‘#EndSARS’ generation. But I am not swayed. Real electioneering is a different kettle of fish compared to going viral on social media.

Sure, Obi will make a significant impact, similar to what President Muhammadu Buhari made pre-APC when he contested three times and lost. Even then, Buhari had more entrenched support in the north than Obi does have now in the south. Yet, he lost three times. He only managed to win when he became pragmatic and aligned with ‘strange bed fellows’ – other political parties – to form the APC, a party with national spread and support]/b].

[b]The enthusiasm of Obi’s supporters today is similar to that of Buhari’s pre-APC. With Buhari easily filling up stadia in Zaria and Maiduguri, his fanatical supporters could not but wonder how he lost with such ‘massive support’. They were fooled by the optics. Outside his home base, the then Candidate Buhari lacked critical support in far-flung places such as Okrika (in Rivers state), Southern Ijaw (in Bayelsa state) and Bende (in Abia), among other places in the south.

Obi’s supporters are in a similar bind, convinced by the swelling online and offline support that their candidate is destined for Aso Rock. But ask them, who is canvassing for Obi in Fika local government in Yobe, for instance? Or in Gassol local government in Taraba? Who would get out the votes for him in those places? No one?

The fact is no candidate can win the presidential election without substantial political investments and support from across the country. As it stands now, Obi does not have that depth and plurality of support and so, cannot win.

So, I restate that for the opposition to have a chance in 2023, they would need to do what all the legacy parties that gave birth to the APC did pre-2015: merge and support one strong presidential candidate. Outside that, they stand no chance.

https://www.thecable.ng/why-candidate-obi-may-fail/amp

I had wished the goon who wasted internet bandwidth on the above crap remembered PDP is the main opposition party to APC. Also, I would want Yoruba to focus on Atiku and PDP and leave Obi and LP alone.

Maxymilliano:
I align with the writer, Peter Obi is the best presidential candidate that can move Nigeria forward, but since the labor party does not have strong political structures, it will be difficult for him to win the presidential election, many electorate vote based on religion, ethnicity and more importantly, their stomach.

It does not bleeping matter.

We will vote for him even if he does not win.

We will not vote for those 2 useless parties and their candidates as the writer himself "advised". But this time around, we will not sit this one out. We will vote and vote RIGHT

Mandate2023:
Give it to obi supporters when it comes to backward reasoning .....all dey have in their head is obi will win but if u ask them hw dey will say he has majority of d youth supporting him, I have more than 7 friends living close to each other that we hang out together almost everyday and we all r supporting tinubu so when dey say majority of youth I just laugh bcoz I know dey r judging base on d online noise which so many won't even vote at d end of d day

I laugh ooo

I am a youth too and I have a lot of colleagues supporting Tinubu.

The 60yr old youth candidate who was a governor in one backwards state of anambra for 8yrs and nothing to show ass kickers make more noise.People have left social media for them for the fear of being bullied

Basic123:

I laugh ooo

I am a youth too and I have a lot of colleagues supporting Tinubu.

The 60yr old youth candidate who was a governor in one backwards state of anambra for 8yrs and nothing to show ass kickers make more noise.People have left social media for them for the fear of being bullied

Yea, Peter Obi is not important. He is weak and his movement is online "noise".

Ok, we "agree". But why do you guys spend so much time talking about him? Tackling him. Shouldnt your main focus be on the PDP candidate? How come you are spenďing this inordinate time on a candidate that is just "making noise".


If Obi is so weak, then stop talking about him. You cannot be talking about a person 20 out of 24 hrs of the day, and then turnaround to say that person is not important. What kinda foollery is that??

Anyways, be deceiving yourself there. E go shock una.

Shebi, the recent massive voters registration have nòt taught you guys any lessons. Abi you think people, esp young persons, are coming out cos of Tinubu

History will be made and people will henceforth not joke with the Nigerian people.

Obi will be voted in against many odds!

Yorubas and their thin veiled reasons to vote Tinubu. It's all about conscience and posterity.

In 2015, I voted Jonathan. Throughout these eight years of Buhari, I was at peace with my soul.

Eight years later, I will still vote competence, my conscience and posterity!

Thinkam:
Factos, Nigeria political reality isn't about competence. It never has been.

So Obi shouldn't waste the youths vote and that if his region, select one of the two bad candidates and merge.

Will you shutt your mouth this Sunday mornin.

You want us to pick from any of the "bad candidates"(your own words) cos we should not "waste" our votes?

Like seriously?? You say that will a straight face?

Suffer no dey tire una?

nameo:


Will you shutt your mouth this Sunday mornin.

You want us to pick from any of the "bad candidates"(your own words) cos we should not "waste" our votes?

Like seriously?? You say that will a straight face?

Suffer no dey tire una?

That's the reality mate, Nigeria can never get better, the elites don't want it, politicians don't, political parties don't, even the ordinary Nigerian doesn't..

So why deceive one self

DMerciful:
History will be made and people will henceforth not joke with the Nigerian people.

Obi will be voted in against many odds!

Exactly!

His arguments are very compelling and practical but what it simple means is that we should work harder.

We should work harder until those in Fika in Yobe and Gassol in Taraba hear about Obi, and not just hearing about him but deciding to vote for him.

Thinkam:


That's the reality mate, Nigeria can never get better, the elites don't want it, politicians don't, political parties don't, even the ordinary Nigerian doesn't..

So why deceive one self

Nigeria will get better in Jesus name!

And it will happen before your eyes.

You will also taste it with your mouth.

Hear it with your ear…

And feel it on your skin.

It will be in 2023.

Thinkam:


That's the reality mate, Nigeria can never get better, the elites don't want it, politicians don't, political parties don't, even the ordinary Nigerian doesn't..

So why deceive one self

Bros, plzz dont be deceived by that guy i quoted.

He is not part of "ordinary Nigerians".

He is a lackeys of one of these oppressor politicians. These are the hungŕy lackeys very low in the food chain, looking for scraps to chop.

Na their way be dat.

But this time we are ready. Our soul is ready.

All these nonsense must stop

PS: The talking in the 3rd person is on purpose

Maxymilliano:
I align with the writer, Peter Obi is the best presidential candidate that can move Nigeria forward, but since the labor party does not have strong political structures, it will be difficult for him to win the presidential election, many electorate vote based on religion, ethnicity and more importantly, their stomach.

You ve been a PDP urchin right from Adam so nothing new. It's what we expected from you

colorsofrainbow:

You ve been a PDP urchin right from Adam so nothing new. It's what we expected from you

The writer's expose is profound, a vote for Peter Obi is a vote for APC ...

Mandate2023:
Give it to obi supporters when it comes to backward reasoning .....all dey have in their head is obi will win but if u ask them hw dey will say he has majority of d youth supporting him, I have more than 7 friends living close to each other that we hang out together almost everyday and we all r supporting tinubu so when dey say majority of youth I just laugh bcoz I know dey r judging base on d online noise which so many won't even vote at d end of d day

so 7 of you clueless fellows account for Nigeria youth?

Hotice007:
so 7 of you clueless fellows account for Nigeria youth?

As in, ehn

My vote is for Peter Obi. There's nothing anyone can do about it. Win or lose we'll make a big statement with our votes in 2023. But Peter Obi is coming and he'll win.

Yoruba's are indeed enemies of a progressive Nigeria.

They hate anything called good as long as its not coming from a Yoruba.

Imagine a people who rejected pastor osinbanjo for a drug Barron Tinubu.

Very unfortunate people.

Yoruba's have never supported any Igbo before nor will they ever do.

Congratulations, Tinubu has failed.

Thinkam:
Factos, Nigeria political reality isn't about competence. It never has been.

So Obi shouldn't waste the youths vote and that if his region, select one of the two bad candidates and merge.

And you have seen what not cearing about competence has done right ? Yet you want to keep doing the same mistake over and over again

Not for me Obi is the best candidate so he has my vote . Even if he gets one votes it would be mine vote

Maxymilliano:
I align with the writer, Peter Obi is the best presidential candidate that can move Nigeria forward, but since the labor party does not have strong political structures, it will be difficult for him to win the presidential election, many electorate vote based on religion, ethnicity and more importantly, their stomach.

So we should not vote for him then ?

We don't want to be part of those who elects the next incompetent president never

Every idiot is now a political analyst!

Akurakambe:


My vote is for Peter Obi. There's nothing anyone can do about it. Win or lose we'll make a big statement with our votes in 2023. But Peter Obi is coming and he'll win.

Gbam!!!