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By Ehichioya Ezomon
President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu and three other presidential contestants have onus to help their parties secure the states gained in the February 25 poll, and strive to add more states to their columns.
In normal political times, the All Progressives Congress would reap a bandwagon effect from Tinubu’s new status as president-elect.
But a “Third Force” in Labour Party has scrambled the political turfs of heavyweight politicians, including Tinubu, who lost his Lagos base in the February 25 presidential election.
In the March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly election, can Tinubu help retain the seats in states the APC lost, mostly Lagos, and high-votes states as Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and Plateau?
Will former Vice President Atiku Abubakar assist Peoples Democratic Party to produce governors for APC states of Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Gombe and Yobe he won on February 25, and attempt to retain Rivers, Delta, Oyo, Edo and Benue for PDP?
Can New Nigeria Peoples Party candidate, Musa Kwankwaso, also prove that Kano is under his belt, by producing its governor?
For former Anambra Governor Peter Obi, it’s a must-task to produce Labour governors in the states he won, especially Lagos, Delta, Edo, Plateau and Nasarawa, to prove it wasn’t a fluke.
There may be discordant tunes here and there, but the “OBIdients” that backed Obi’s phenomenal presidential run are going at full throttle in Saturday’s election.
They’ll approach the postponed poll in the same manner they voted for Obi and other Labour’s candidates, “from top to bottom.”
Facing prior March 11 poll, some OBIdients had suggested voting a few candidates, outside Labour’s, that have character, competence, capacity and experience.
They’d vouched for candidates of the APC in Delta and Benue, All Progressives Grand Alliance in Enugu and the PDP in Oyo.
Notably, Aisha Yesufu – face of the Obi-Datti campaign – had broached voting for APGA’s Frank Nweke Jnr, as governor of Enugu “because he is the most qualified candidate to lead the state.”
Reacting to Obi’s “blanket vote” for Labour’s candidates, Ms Yesufu tweeted: “God forbid I become what I want to change. I can never sacrifice competence for partisanship.
“Frank Nweke Jnr @FrankNwekeII is the person for Enugu State. The people must be the winners and not individuals.”
Contrarily, Obi had sent out a message to his diehard OBIdients, to vote all Labour’s candidates.
In his tweet, Obi wrote: “As we pursue due process and defer to the rule of law (in his and LP’s petition at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal), I urge all the OBIdients in the various states to continue campaigning for our candidates, namely, Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour in Lagos, Chijoke Edeoga in Enugu, Patrick Dakum in Plateau, Alex Otti in Abia, Ken Pela in Delta, Ibrahim Mshelia in Borno, to name just a few.”
In urging votes for Labour’s candidates, Obi highlighted their “competence, character, capacity and compassion.”
But to polity watchers, many Labour’s candidates Obi drums support for don’t possess those qualities juxtaposed with other parties’ candidates that some OBIdients would rather they vote for.
Thus, for Labour’s candidates in the 28 states where poll will hold on March 18, it’ll be “‘Eluu P’ (LP) from top to bottom” – the vote slogan of the OBIdients.
Not surprising, the OBIdients, in Obi’s footsteps, don’t consider any other candidate in Lagos besides Labour’s as having the requisite qualifications to vie for governor.
Like they’d rated Obi for the presidential poll, they’ve adjudged Labour’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour as unmatched by other candidates.
Not even APC’s acknowledged high-performing Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu could pass the mustard of OBIdients’ reckoning.
Actually, Sanwo-Olu is the target of the OBIdients from the on onset – and it wasn’t a coincidence that in listing the candidates that the OBIdients should campaign for, Obi named Rhodes-Vivour first.
Defeating President-elect Tinubu in Lagos is an added advantage to removing Sanwo-Olu, because without the governorship, “Tinubu and APC are finished in Lagos.”
Campaigns are tailored to focus on ethnic biases of Sanwo-Olu and Rhodes-Vivour: Who’s more Yoruba and “original” indigene of Lagos!
The “indigenes of Lagos” agitators reckon Sanwo-Olu as a “Yoruba in Lagos,” even as the governor leans more on his competence and capacity to delivering remarkable achievements in the past four years, and the need for continuity, to sustain Lagos’ growth trajectory that’s made it the fifth largest economy in Africa.
On the flip side, the “Lagos indigenes” consider Rhodes-Vivour as a “true son of the soil” through whom they’ve vowed to ensure that “Lagos belongs to Lagosians.”
Yet, Rhodes-Vivour is accused of several things: Parades a “fake certificate” from MIT, Cambridge, MA, in the United States (Institute confirms he earned a Masters there); a non-Yoruba with mother and wife of Igbo extraction; speaks Igbo fluently than Yoruba; he’s a member of banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that he wants involved in Lagos affairs.
That he’s sympathy for Biafra he promises, if elected as governor, to create a “Biafra Day” for in Lagos; pledges to depose Lagos (Yoruba) Obas and replace them with Igbo Obas (Obis); declare October 20 as #EndSARS Day, to commemorate alleged “massacre” of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate, which he vows to demolish.
These allegations – some traced to his social media posts – rather than weigh him down, have galvanised Rhodes-Vivour and vociferous OBIdients, and majority Igbo to identify with their “kin” at the poll.
Taking a page from Obi’s playbook, Rhodes-Vivour tours “Igbo areas” of Lagos, which welcome him as a Rock star with Igbo cultural songs and dances, and promises to vote him and other Labour candidates.
Can Obi claim Lagos for Labour or be shown the way out from the “State of Excellence” by President-elect Tinubu? It’s days away!
* Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
