The problem with Peter Obi, by Johnson Momod

Considering that the sequel to a typical political “great man” Nigerian is often a Rauco show, Peter Obi is a disconcerting strangeness.

No convoy. No godfather. No appetite for the grandeur. The former Governor of Anambra flies to the economy, chat with the merchants in the main market of Onitsha and hosts Marathon XSPEPA sessions with every Chukwudi, Aisha and Hades.

They call him “Okwute”, the rock, but sometimes he runs more like a village priest who insists to greet everyone after mass and refuses to sit in the front bench.

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To put it in a simple language, Nigeria is a country where power with dark design glasses, customized agbadas and clanging of sirens is performed. So why does this Peter Obi always behave as a saint without a sense of theater?

A man so anxious to respond to every bark in the alley really be trusted to guide a nation that, for better or for worse, still is equivalent to the authority with the distance?

● A catalog of legitimate complaints

Let’s start where even his admirers scratch their heads.

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Obi’s first tactical error is that it is too available. Nigerian leaders generally speak through four layers of senior assistants who sometimes have their assistants.

Obi, on the other hand, stops for the interviews along the road, Spars with trolls on X and directly faces issues such as the recent demolition of the property of his brother in Lagos. In comparison, it is difficult to imagine Paul Kagame who explains something to anyone on social media.

Then there is the problem of humility. Yes, humility is a virtue. But the Nigerians are also sentimental on Swag. We want our humble leaders on the camera, but not so humble to live as normal people.

And then Obi comes. He lives in a house in Onitsha. According to reports, the man has a wardrobe that could adapt to a transport bag. He insists on being all men. At a certain point, people, understandably, have to ask: “Is this man even trying to be president?”

Subsequently, we come to his approach to the management of public funds. As a governor of Anambra, Obi has left over $ 150 million and ₦ 35 billion in the state accounts. But critics launch themselves on him on every occasion and say that those funds were needed, not later. The holes persisted. What is the point of saving money when you have not finished solving the problems faced by your people?

The well -known Obi critics of the last few days such as Reno Omokri and Charles Soludo argue that poverty has actually increased during the Obi mandate. Others say that his investment in the brewery was indicative of little judgment. In the Nigerian language of Pidgin, they ask: “All this money you are saving, who helps?”

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Even the 2023 campaign of Obi, however brilliant, showed undeniable cracks. He won Twitter. He won the heart. He won Abuja. He won Lagos. But he did not win enough electoral elements in the villages where the votes grow on rice -fertilized trees, wraps and notes of Naira rolled crushed in eager palms.

To put it slightly, the Obidiential Movement is thundered online. But where it counted more, at the level of the department in which the elections were a contact sport, they were overcome and turned off and reduced to whispers. Without political agents or patronage networks, idealism alone was not enough.

Perhaps worse than everything, in some elite neighborhoods, Obi is seen as that stubborn boy in class he refuses to cheat during the exams. And to worsen things, this “Over-Sabi” boy wants all the others to stop cheating. Haba, Mallam Obi. Haba!

Wanting that everyone stops cheating is admirable, yes. But in a country where the game is the game, the refusal of compromise obi makes it seem not only naive, but potentially dangerous.

● We review this “problem”

What if this so -called problem with Peter Obi wasn’t really his problem?

And if the discomfort it causes is not because it is failing, but why does it refuse to adapt to the political project of Nigeria in which corruption is coded and are reformers seen as intruders?

And if the refusal of Obi of “belonging” is the clearest sign that it is exactly what Nigeria needs?

● The man who refuses to “play ball”

Take the so -called excessive availability of OBI. In a nation where politicians go around when the office win, Peter Obi insists to be seen and listened to. It does not delegate the involvement with the media assistants who issue printing declarations full of errors at a secondary school level. It presents itself. Both in a market, on a plane or in a space on Twitter that drags for hours, is there, responding alone. You can call it exhausting, but you can’t call it dishonest.

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In addition, the minimalist lifestyle of OBI is not a performative. It is proof that leadership can be regulated without being miserable. In an environment in which public offices are seen as a license for luxury, Obi’s preference for moderation is a radical declaration. It manages scarce resources like a man who once sold the tomatoes and still remembers how you feel losing an entire basket to rot.

Do you see that controversial investment of the brewery? He still earns state revenues. Even the governor Flip-Flopping Soludo admits that the brewery provides work for people from Anambra.

The money that Obi was behind him helped Anambra to remain afloat while other states were aligning with the federal rescue window.

Moreso, let’s not forget that Obi paid the salaries, a company that should not be remarkable except for at least one state in which suicide rates increased because the governor refused to pay state workers what was due to them.

In the meantime, Obi has eliminated retirement arrears. He should not have contractors. He returned schools to the missions and improved the infrastructures that were actually used by people, not only admired by helicopters.

● And while we are here, we talk about pensions.

Peter Obi is the only former Nigerian governor who does not draw a pension from his state.

In a country where some former governors and their deputies are entitled to dwellings in Abuja and their state of origin, car fleets, foreign travel allowances, medical check abroad and an annual birthday advertisement of the Ministry of Information, Obi said no.

Not with press conferences. He never collected. This alone deserves a standing ovation.

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And 2023? Call it how you want, but we all know what it really was: a serious interruption. For the first time since 1999, a third credible force emerged, fueled by youth, integrity and a profound hunger for change.

Obi has moved something fundamental to Nigerian politics. At the beginning they ridiculed him, they said that he could not get one hundred thousand votes and subsequently adapted him to one million votes. But not only did he get over six million votes, but he showed that a campaign could thrive without criminals or vans of ingots. He forced the political elite to change their playbook books and refine their apologies.

He was on the ground during the floods in Benue and Niger, while others were “inevitably absent”. He proposed royal rescue plans and visited displaced fields. In the north, the holes financed personally made him earn the nickname “Sark Maskan” by the locals. As according to what is reported, a woman, “that man has our time. He does not only have a speech for TV”.

● The problem is not Peter Obi

The real problem with Peter Obi is that he doesn’t know how to steal. He doesn’t know how to disappear. He doesn’t know how to pretend.

It manages public money as if it belongs to the people. It makes campaigns as if he is applying for a job, not inheriting a throne. His record in Anambra, no unpaid salary, eliminated pensions and security stability for five years, shows an honest manager of scarce resources that do not need to shout to drive.

The so -called OBI defects are a mirror. They reflect a country that still adapts to the idea that leadership must not be wrapped in arrogance and non -responsibility. His is not a policy of perfection. It is a policy of discipline, clarity and presence.

The real problem with Peter Obi, which the political class knows too well is that it is different. It’s not like them. He does not like it because, as they say openly, “Obi will not steal. And he won’t let the other rubies”.

Is the ordinary Nigerians ask themselves, is it really a problem? Or isn’t that exactly what Nigeria needs?

● Momod contributed with this piece from Benin City.

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