Many would ask, “What would he have done differently?” Let me tell you a Story; the Story of Power, Politics, and Blood in Nigeria. In Nigeria, violence is the medium through which political power is negotiated.
In Nigeria, power is not secured through the ballot, but grabbed with bullets. Majority of Nigerian Politicians possess an army of mercenaries, popularly called “Political Thugs” armed, maintained, and well cared for by these politicians, ready to be deployed as the occasion demands.
On election day, these mercenaries have just one mandate, deliver the votes. They would go to any length to execute this mandate, even if it demands shedding human blood.
What we call Boko Haram insurgents today, started from groups of political thugs operating at the behest of one notorious Borno politician by the name Ali Modu Sheriff. It was after Sheriff had grabbed power, and abandoned these youths that they became radicalised by the founder of the sect.
What we call Bandits today, are nothing but armed mercenaries that were imported into Nigeria from the Sahel region, on the road to the 2015 Presidential Election, with only one aim – get Goodluck Jonathan out of power.
Upon being abandoned by those who secured their services, these mercenaries simply settled in Nigeria’s ungoverned forest areas and began to use the same guns handed to them by politicians, to erk out a living.
Now those mercenaries have entered into alliances with other militant groups in the Sahel as well as global jihadist organisations.
Nigerian Politicians are the greatest enemies against the Nigerian State, and their supporters and apologists are accomplices in their crimes. So what would Peter Obi have done differently? 3 things:
Firstly, he would have brought the required moral authority to the fight against insecurity. Peter Obi is one of the very few Nigerian politicians who has never touched violence all of his political life.
He has never maintained or used political thugs nor has he ever sponsored violence as a means of grabbing power. He is someone you can refer to as an outsider in the warfare that politics is in Nigeria.
President Tinubu cannot fight insecurity in the country and would not dare to. You can’t fight a problem you are a part of.
Can President Tinubu confidently say that his 2023 Presidential victory was not purchased with the currency of violence? You can’t be a user of violence, and pretend to be fighting insecurity.
Peter Obi’s moral authority would have given him the audacity to confront insecurity in the country, without fear of blackmail or being shown his own image in the mirror.
Secondly, Peter Obi would have united all Nigerians in the fight against insecurity and galvanised the mass of the people to fight these criminals.
From the day President Tinubu proclaimed the “Emi Lokan”, and “ Yoruba Lokan”, phrases, he lost the legitimacy to mobilise all Nigerians.
While he gained the support of Yorubas, he lost the sympathy and love of Nigerians of other ethnicities, something that his government desperately needed and without which it is impossible to defeat a common enemy.
The greatest harm President Tinubu has done to the Yorubas is his Yoruba Nationalist posture, which has turned the rest of the country against them. How do you rally other Nigerians when you have openly boasted that “Yoruba Lo kan”?
As President, a Peter Obi would have governed the country differently. Obi has never been known to make statements with ethnic undertones.
More significantly, he would have started his presidency by assembling a government that all Nigerians would call their own, not one that many would despise as an Igbo government or a Yoruba government.
He would have extracted himself from the equation and put Nigeria first. Even when everyone knows he is Igbo by birth, his ethnicity and that of his people, won’t have been brazenly thrown in the face of other Nigerians like Presidential Tinubu has done.
This way, he would have sent a strong message to the criminals terrorising the country, that Nigerians are one people and an injury to one is an injury to all.
Thirdly, in addition to galvanising the Nigerian people, a Peter Obi would have mobilised that much-needed regional and international military support, to fight and conquer this hydra-headed monster.
Nigeria’s insecurity challenges is no longer a domestic affair. Though it started as a localised matter, it now has a regional and international dimension.
Rather than do this, President Tinubu spent his early days in office fragmenting West Africa’s main bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), through his needless threat of launching military action against the government in Niger Republic.
That action saw three (3) Sahel countries battling with insurgency i.e., Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic, exit ECOWAS. These are countries that Nigeria shares borders as well as ethnic and cultural ties with.
The insurgents operating in Nigeria, work hand in hand with those operating in these countries, sharing intelligence, resources, and manpower. Most times, they even go back and forth through our porous borders, funnelling men and resources.
How do you fight insurgents and bandits in Nigeria, without having access to also plugging the sources of their supplies in these Sahel countries?
As we speak, Bamako the capital of one of these countries, Mali is under siege by militant jihadist, with military operations ongoing to push them back.
What do you think will happen if Mali falls into the hands of the insurgents? Don’t you think that will embolden their partners in Nigeria? Don’t you think they will greatly increase their deployment of men and resources to Nigeria, to achieve the same goal?
The exit of those 3 Sahel countries from ECOWAS was a major own-goal for the Tinubu government, something that Nigeria is paying dearly for at the moment.
Notwithstanding that the ECOWAS Treaty forbids Unconstitutional Change of Government, a Peter Obi as President would have managed the situation differently.
He would have visited the government of each of those Sahel countries to engage with them at a political and military level, knowing that beyond the unconstitutionality of their governments, he needs them to be on board this fight, in order to make any meaningful progress.
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He would have set up joint militray operations with these countries, that will involve high-level military cooperation among the Army, Air Force, and Navy of all countries involved.
Under an Obi presidency, Nigerian military jets, with the approval of these governments, would have been bombing insurgents and jihadist’s enclaves in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic.
Beyond joint militray operations, a Peter Obi as President would have gone all out to solicit military support from other countries that boast leading expertise in insurgency warfare.
He would have been engaging global leaders, pressing it into their ears, of how they must as a matter of urgency save Nigeria from falling into the hands of jihadists, because saving Nigeria means saving West Africa and in extension, it means saving the broader African continent.
A Peter Obi has President wouldn’t have gone to Buckingham Palace to be cracking jokes about Nigerian Jollof Rice, when his people have just being bombed by Boko Haram terrorists in Maiduguri.
Under an Obi presidency, the United States (US) would have been involved from the get go. It wouldn’t have taken a Nigerian Pastor crying out for the US government to step in.
I can go on and on. You see, Nigeria is currently at the precipice and the signs ahead are very troubling. Tragically, those who caused this problem are the same people who are currently in power. The only way out of this mess, is to elect to office a Man who is not a member of the gang. When we say Peter Obi is the Man Nigeria needs at this time, we are not talking politics, we are talking survival.
Olusola Adegbite, PhD
