Three Reasons Why I Will Advise Peter Obi Not To Run In 2027
I have known Peter Obi a long time, his village is just a stone’s throw from mine. As a successful international businessman and billionaire, he returned from the UK in 2002 to aspire to be Governor of Anambra, which he did after a lengthy legal battle. Its not everything Obi did as Governor of Anambra that I’m happy with, but most Anambrarians will tell you he left the State much better than he met it. As 2027 approaches, no doubt Peter Obi will be under pressure to run again for President. If I were him, I won’t run, for three reasons
1. 2027 has already been rigged. Let Obi learn from not just the last Presidential elections he ran in, but from subsequent elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa, where elections were rigged with impunity. The by-elections were even worse. The 2027 elections will be brazenly rigged, and Peter Obi will be told to “go to court”. Obi should also remember that he will be running against an incumbent who believes in “grabbing power and running with it”, and has state resources at his disposal. So Peter Obi should spare himself the trouble over elections that the results have already been written
2. Even if Peter Obi manages to navigate the treacherous waters of Nigerian politics and wins, his troubles will just be starting. Obi does not know the Nigeria he wants to be President of, he does not know that ‘one Nigeria’ does not exist, and that some people will always see him as nothing more than an Igbo man and Christian. Those people are going to going to use propaganda, deciet, lies, insecurity etc to sabotage his regime from day one. No matter how well intentioned Obi might be, every move he makes will be turned into an ethnic, religious or ideological issue. Those who cannot bear an Igbo man being President will come after his regime like a hurricane. The result is that Obi will spend 4 years there fighting, if he is not thrown out before then, and achieve nothing.
3. Obi once said that Nigeria is like a car with a knocked engine, he was right. No matter how good a driver may be, he won’t get far in a car with a knocked engine. Has Obi ever heard of a ‘good Nigerian President’? No such thing has ever existed, or will ever exist. The driver is only as good as the engine of the car. No Nigerian President can do well. We are too divided along ethnic, religious and ideological lines to build a progressive nation. Everyone only talks about who will be the driver, few care about the engine, yet expect the car to take them to heaven. Who is fooling who? Some people like me advocate that we forget the driver, the engine and the car, disembark, and go our seperate ways. Some say no
My advice to Obi is to forget this cursed office of President and focus on his philanthropy. Obi will touch more lives and help more people this way. Until a time when people start taking the engine far more seriously than they take who will be the driver, the office of President will destroy whoever goes in there, and Obi should stay away from it.
