“The place justice is denied, the place poverty is enforced, the place ignorance prevails, and the place anybody class is made to really feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither individuals nor property might be protected “

—Frederick Douglas

Occasions are dire for Africa’s greatest democracy, little question. In February 2023, the nation faces a frightening hurdle that can positively outline her both as an elite captured pseudo-failed state or a nation-state with roots of residents’ paramount pursuits. It’s a battle between Nigerian ruling elites versus the individuals. A category wrestle of types—that has all the trimmings of a do-or-die democracy. For a damning 62 years, Nigerian ruling elites plundered the state with reckless abandon, enriching themselves, households, cronies, oligarchs and foreigners by means of illicit siphoning of public funds and deliberate carnage.

Subsequently, within the forthcoming Presidential contest, the elites represented by the All Progressives Congress Bola Tinubu and Peoples Democratic Social gathering’s Atiku Abubakar are all up in arms towards Labour Social gathering’s Peter Obi, whose momentous rise has revolutionised even apolitical residents eager to take again their nation from the ruling elites, who’ve been careless in regards to the wellbeing of the individuals for thus lengthy. Thus, each shade, missiles, assaults, misinformation and propaganda are being focused at nobody however Obi. Although, innocuous, it’s a well-known trajectory in political campaigns and electioneering.

In an article printed in THISDAY Newspaper on Friday, August 12, 2022, by one Jesutega Onokpasa, titled What Is Peter Obi Actually Up To?, the writer laboriously tried to color LP’s presidential candidate, Obi as an ineffectual presidential wannabe. Onokpasa argued backwards and forwards whereas contradicting himself when he alluded that “Peter Obi is certified to be president however I can not see how he can change into president nor how he can succeed.” He went on to say that “Peter Obi merely doesn’t know the best way to work with individuals and has by no means been capable of assert himself as a political chief.”

The implication of the above quote within the piece by Onokpasa insinuates that Obi is politically ‘impotent’ and that the episodic circumstances of impeachment that characterised his tenure because the then Governor of Anambra State might be re-enacted if Obi finally turns into the President. Onokpasa tried to check and distinction Obi and APC’s presidential candidate, Tinubu, who’s Onokpasa’s benefactor.

For readability, Mr Onokpasa’s article appeared like a thumbs up for a legal state and applause for intolerant democracy, as practised then in Anambra State, a signpost of the challenges of political accountability. John P. McCormick in his work, Machiavellian Democracy: Its Rise and Fall (2011), opined that the disaster of political accountability in modern democracy is entrenched when an electoral system upends the ability of the bulk or majoritarian votes for the assist of the ruling political and financial elites whose sole curiosity is self-aggrandisement and confiscation of public wealth. Onokpasa’s paymasters vividly match that billing and outline. For the data, when Onokpasa and his co-travellers cite Obi’s impeachment by the then Anambra State Home of Meeting members as a ploy to downplay Obi’s political sagacity, they inadvertently challenge the LP presidential normal bearer as an astute democrat with the very best temperament that adheres to constitutionalism and follows the rule of legislation. Erroneously, Onokpasa painted the mentioned lawmakers and Tinubu as undemocratic and never keen to comply with due course of and the spirit of the legislation.

Additional, Onokpasa’s comparability of Obi and Tinubu and the way the latter was capable of advance his political equipment may be very laughable and smacks of a self-indictment of his principal, Tinubu. Obi, in contrast to Tinubu, has by no means been accused of cornering public funds, nor corruptly enriching himself. Now, let’s take a look at the data.

In 2007, weeks to the expiration of his tenure as Governor of Lagos State, Tinubu, propped up the then state meeting to promulgate the Public Workplace Holder (Cost of Pension) Regulation No 11 Official Gazette 2007 during which Tinubu, as a former Governor, was and until date is entitled to 2 homes in Lagos and Abuja; six model new vehicles each three years; rapacious salaries and allowances operating into hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, a phoney leisure allowance, amongst different allowances corresponding to home upkeep, utility, primary wage, private assistants. These allowances as Frederick Douglas posited above are a transparent case of oppression and theft of the Lagos individuals. Sensing this broad-day theft, Socio-Financial Rights and Accountability Venture has been in court docket towards Lagos State Authorities on this. Not executed, Tinubu’s  Alpha Beta Firm is the chief tax collector in Lagos State with a humongous consultancy price that runs into billions of {dollars}.

Not solely that, within the 23 years, the APC nationwide chief has been alleged to have appropriated the entire of Lagos State into a personal property; from the appointment of cronies, land, alternative authorities properties and to essentially the most daring draining pipes in state funds. General, it has been an outright and audacious confiscation of public wealth of the individuals, during which, Lagos is Tinubu and Tinubu is Lagos. What’s going to then occur if Tinubu turns into the President of Nigeria?  It will likely be essentially the most harmful clientele, state seize and pay-to-play administration in world historical past.

Now, allow us to flip the web page on Obi. On the finish of his tenure as Governor of Anambra State, all entreaties and persuasion had been made to make sure that Obi promulgated a pension act for himself and different political goons within the state. He vehemently turned down the supply. They supplied land and homes; Obi shockingly rejected it and has offered the letter of request and rejection to the general public. So, why can somebody who’s accountable and clear be Nigeria’s president at a time when management has change into the nation’s albatross? If the likes of Onokpasa care to know, Nigeria is sinking, collapsing, tagging alongside because the poverty capital of the world and excessive up there in rating within the International Terrorism Index, and rushing in the direction of the precipice. Thus, Peter Obi represents the change that Nigerians lengthy for to finish the present catastrophic slide within the nation. A purpose that has continued to elicit and appeal to many Nigerians from completely different lessons, tribes and faiths who see Obi as an altruistic and honest presidential candidate for a greater Nigeria.

Instructively, for Nigeria to take its rightful place within the comity of countries in 2023 going ahead, Peter Obi is presenting himself as an trustworthy, clear, humble; and as candidate that has a residents’ method to governance, charisma, sound thoughts and age;  a educated individual whose ethos and worth system represents accountability and transparency and Nigeria’s present demography. Added to that, Peter Obi’s presidential candidacy symbolises a cognate allegiance to social justice and growth.

These are information that the likes of Onokpasa ought to face squarely. In all, Peter Obi stays the one pathway to Nigeria’s rejuvenation and greatness in 2023 and past.

 Obi, a journalist and researcher, writes from Abuja