I have a soft spot for Peter Obi. He is a very good Nigerian, a statesman and former governor whose feat in Anambra till remains unmatched.
Undoubtedly, he wants the best for his country. But he just told his teeming followers he is not a sound strategist. He did so by dumping the PDP, a party in which he had sowed so much. A party on which platform he had criss-crossed the country talking to delegates on why they must switch allegiance to him.
Why waste their time for so long with PDP when even the blind knows where they are heading? What do you hope to change with Labour Party within days? The culture of money politics? It is our home grown reality.
Late Dr Tai Solarin was very poignant about lessons of his life. On his scholarship to study in USSR (as the country then was)? He said if the devil gives you scholarship take it first. It should guide in all ways.
The Nigeria you seek, where money play less of sense is utopian Mr Obi. Because politics is Nigeria’s only thriving sector, it must continue to play that role for now, of being many a people’s meal ticket.
The journey even took a snappy stop with the Kwakwanso’s NNPP, before eventually lapping up the Labour Party offer.
You deceive yourself if you think Labour Party will give you it’s ticket without mining your purse. It does not happen. Democracy is expensive. Even when everything works, democracy will continue to demand its due.
That is why it pains to see leaders with scant emotional intelligence, but worse, without strategy.
It beggars no thoughts to know that to change the tide, you must be in and not out of the vortex of power. With his record of changing parties at will, at the flimsiest of cant, Obi may soon realise he will lose the goodwill that took him years to build. Soon, he will join the league of most travelled politician, who has moved within parties, changing them like they change diapers.
Why dump stats on Nigerians and lead them by the nose to the island of hope, only to dump them and chicken out? Leadership is about determination, about reliability and about durability. Leadership is not about mining excuses. If you don’t have those qualities, you find you’ll be shifting forever like ewe oju omi. Permanently tossed by the rollings of the water, ewe oju omi kii nisinmi.
It’s bad for a brand not to have an identity. Moving from APGA to PDP and from PDP to Labour Party is not the best way to tell us you are prepared to lead. Rather, like Cameleon, you’ve boldly told us you are shifty and may be unreliable. You may at best end up being the best president Nigeria never had. And with benefit of hindsight, looking at our recent history, where Nigerians vested our hope on a rampaging General, who knows, it might be your best epaulet yet.
