For Obi to publicly denounce someone who still commands a lot of following in the region they both hail from, and where Obi is guaranteed loyal voters that will give him a block vote, should he decide to throw his hat in the presidential ring again, will be unwise and could devastatingly nerf his electoral value and political clout.
Whenever there is an incident or event of national significance, there is always an unspoken consensus that former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, must react and share his perspective on such an event. This always put him in a difficult position. The last general elections nudged him into the mainstream of Nigerian politics. The popularity comes with huge expectations, which have earned him a double personality. On the one hand, he is highly revered and greatly respected by many; on the other hand, he is widely loathed and vilified by supporters of the ruling party and the president. However, even his harshest critics and detractors always anticipate his reaction and position on key national issues.
While his supporters genuinely anticipate his social media posts where he shares his views and perspective on germane socio-economic and political matters because for them it is a way of staying in touch and connecting with him even if they end up not agreeing with his position, which is seldom, his traducers and detractors anticipation of his reaction to topical public discourse is not in anyway rooted in the need to honestly and dispassionately examine, critic and engage his stance but to use that opportunity to spite, heckle, disparage and vilify him, no matter how reasonable, balanced, measured and thoughtful his position.
So it happens that when Justice James Omotosho sentenced the embattled leader of the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) to life imprisonment last Thursday, Obi found himself in the thick of things as many waited with bated breath for his reaction. He has no choice but to speak. The matter is too close to home to remain silent with dignity. And when he eventually weighed in on the matter many, including his staunch supporters, were stunned by the position he took. This allowed many of his political opponents and their followers to lambast and discredit him. Obi, in his reaction, had claimed there was no need for the government to arrest Obi and that Kanu’s imbroglio was a failure of leadership. Many were expecting a sharp, poignant and strongly worded statement condemning the atrocities of Kanu and his men, but what they got was a bland, tepid and overly cautious statement that implicitly justified their tyranny and barbarity.
However, anyone who has followed Obi’s commentary on key and contentious public discourse knows that he is somewhat of a centrist. He does not like to rock the boat too much and that is if he decides to rock it at all. He wants to maintain his national appeal. He has a penchant for being too conservative, careful and conscious in many of his public commentaries. This approach is spurred by the need to remain in the good graces of his supporters while trying to win over his detractors.
But in Kanu’s case, even though many find his position on Kanu’s sentence distasteful and abhorrent, it is not a position that he adopted in the heat of the moment. Obi has always been consistent in his stance. He has always maintained that Kanu should not have been arrested even though such a position is widely unpopular among the people of the southeast, where Kanu’s campaign of terror took place. The problem with Obi is that he is too careful to the point of duplicity and cunningness. At the core of Obi’s unpopular and, many will say, disgraceful, official position on the Kanu matter lies political survival and self-preservation.
Obi sees open challenge and criticism of what Kanu stands for as a political suicide. Say what you will about Kanu, many Igbos still believe his cause is a just and noble one irrespective of what he has done to realise his objectives. For Obi to publicly denounce someone who still commands a lot of following in the region they both hail from, and where Obi is guaranteed loyal voters that will give him a block vote, should he decide to throw his hat in the presidential ring again, will be unwise and devastatingly nerf his electoral capital and political clout. He wants to hold on to the proverbial bird at hand tightly while he continues his search for the elusive one in the northern bush.
The bizarre notion that Buhari turned Kanu into a monster is a silly narrative that can only spurt from the mouth of a coward. Obi believes Kanu and all the IPOB’s unknown gunmen committed no criminal offences. For him, they poked and prodded him into embarking on wanton killings and violence, which they unleashed on Igbo land. He thinks the unconscionable atrocities and unspeakable horrors committed by Kanu and his band of feral misguided lunatics are justified.
Obi claimed the matter should have been settled through negotiations and dialogues but he did not initiate any. Obi’s position is not grounded in sound reasoning and logic but calculated political gamesmanship and naked opportunism. This may not be unconnected to future political schemings and manoeuvring. Obi’s surreal and shocking stance may be to counter whatever move Tinubu has up his sleeves in the future. Tinubu will likely release Kanu before 2027 in an attempt to secure the votes of the South East. Obi knows Tinubu and the APC are up to something. He knows the federal government is not forthright and straightforward in the matter of Kanu.
Whatever it is Tinubu and the government are up to, he has to stay grounded; he can’t afford to be blindsided or caught flatfooted when they finally start moving the pieces into place. He has to keep his cult hero status in the east so that when Tinubu finally pardons and releases Kanu, his strange and profoundly unpopular stance today will become wisdom. And any hits on his political fortunes in the north will be reversed.
Vilification and denigration of Kanu’s nefarious agenda and IPOB excesses would earn him commendation in the South West and the North, but it could prove fatal and cost him dearly at home. So he wrapped his pusillanimity and intemperate cautiousness in the tinfoil pragmatism and political expediency. He chose to couch his cowardice in the garb of colourful and neatly woven prose that is neither here nor there, and hopes the episode becomes overshadowed by another drama and Nigerians forget and move on to something, as it is their wont.
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