The opposition is in frantic effort to cast Mr. Peter Obi as an ethnic champion in an attempt to detract from him the millions of followers singing Obidient and Yusful beside him.
They are jittery over the surging crowd. They cannot fathom it. It is unlikely that Nigerians from every hue can proudly stand beside a politician, unwavering and ready to swim and sink with him. To the people, Nigeria in the last 7 years has been a nightmare, wasted years of unproductiveness in poverty, insecurity and hopelessness. The fear of further wasteful years with other candidates that cannot offer hope nor offer something different from the present experience, has propelled the enthusiasm behind the presidential candidacy of Peter Obi.
From the Churches to the markets, streets to social media, region to region, Obi is surging and the outcome has become a nightmare to those in opposition who don’t know how to cut him to size.
They have used many kinds of propaganda and tactics in an attempt to evoke certain primordial sentiments, hatred towards the Igbo and strategy of shame and blame but those tactics are not penetrating. Frustrating.
A nightmare, was the rousing welcome in the Dunamis church last weekend. Such as never seen. A crowd of multi-ethnic and multi-racial rose in hope and joy. Such a sight cannot be taken. That sight cannot be contained and that sight must be diminished. Then came the blame, that Obi is now campaigning and using the church as a bait.
But Obi, who did not utter a word in the viral video, couldn’t have imagined such a scene. But who is he really, a man from a certain region? Is he not a champion of the agitators who, to them, have transferred their loyalty to the presidential ambition of Obi?
Nigerians must be whipped to resume the ethnic suspicion and bigotry and a treatise, long in content but filled with vile and contemptuous prose; Obi must be made to be an ethnic champion such that the age long primordial sentiments should be activated.
It is an attempt to remind Nigerians, in case they may have forgotten where Obi is coming from. They have forgotten that in the critical time and consequential stage of Nigeria, ethnicity does not matter to the people. They are particular about a Moses who can lead the people across the red sea of a sinking Nigeria.
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While their tactics backfired, they activated death threats. From writing about obituary, comes a claim of death threats by the celebrated columnist; Sam Omatseye, who used his column to celebrate ethnic bigotry and inciting ethnic hate and strife in the name of opposition to a candidate the people have found to be their arrow head in their effort to rescue their country from the speedy march to the crematorium. Death, their only subject. Death, they talk about.
If only they can realise that the Obidient movement is not solely championed by the Igbo people. Obi’s opposition has majorly come from Igbo people. So why the effort to push him as an ethnic candidate?
It is the lack of strategy that will make them raise to heroism the candidacy of Obi and canonise him in the minds of his admirers and lovers. These people have lost words to describe their candidates in positive light nor expose the qualities or the policies they are coming with. By constantly victimising Obi and his supporters, they are endearing him to many more followers who continue to join the Obidient train.
What more could be a failed tactic of a galvanised opposition to this candidacy that those who stuck out to castigate him use the same strategy?
First they insult Obidients, then they claim Obidients insulted them. Then they throw ethnic jibes, they run back and claim to be insulted. Then they claim Obi is not containing his followers. Then they incite ethnic strife and hate and when they are roundly responded to, they claim death threats and yet blame Obi. Reno Omokri used this strategy and Sam Omatseye used it too among others. But it shows lack of extensive reasoning for the supporters of other candidates to pool together in their attempt to tar the candidacy of Peter Obi with violence.
It is a crisis of acceptance and a wish for the death of the movement and a return to business as usual.
Beware, not all those using decorative language have the people’s interest at heart. Many are only interested in the sharing of national resources while the people continue to toil in poverty and hopelessness.
Do not heed them. Do not think about what they say. Concentrate on taking the country back; the people’s power. The people should be handing over and taking over power. That is how to get Nigeria to work. And in doing so, they should not also hand over their mind to their detractors.
Indeed, Nigeria is in a gradual and steady walk to obituary but the people are still living. And they are ready to fight for their future.