By Samuel Abasiekong-Abasiekong
One of the major challenges before Peter Gregory Obi right now is that he has moved to Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) with no money bags upholding him like a pillar to withstand the highly competitive 2027 presidential election, where Nigerians with very deep pockets will be his challengers.
As it stands today, the ADC is populated by the Obidient faithful who are majorly young people of voting age. In the other side of the coin, there is Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso with his legion of Kwankwasiyya movement members.
Majority of Obidient faithful are students who are vulnerable at their encounter with proposal to mortgage their votes for money.
On the left, the Kwankwasiyya movement members are bandwagon followers, they need no money to vote Kwankwaso their leader, but it is doubtful that 40% of them will cast their votes for Obi if Atiku emerge as the presidential candidate from the North.
Peter Obi wants to be Nigeria President, but he doesn’t want to sacrifice his business empire Next International Nigeria Ltd, Next Cash & Carry Mall, Fidelity Bank, etc on the alter of politics.
That is Obi’s greatest challenge, that is where Atiku Abubakar and Bola Hamed Tinubu have an upper hand over him. In Nigeria system of things where the masses complain about poor governance, but these same victims are always ready to give away their votes at exchange of some coins, it will be a tall order for Peter Obi to undo this school of thoughts in 2027 electioneering.
Obi believes that the establishment of good governance and the sharing of the dividend of democracy to Nigerians should be all participatory
He adopted this style of politics from the way he started his political career.
Obi, don’t believe in contest and sharing of money to be elected in any position. In 2023, when he contested to be President of Nigeria he said:
“In 2002 I was in Lagos running my business. Ojukwu called me and said, ‘Come and serve your people.’ APGA was the only party that gave me a chance without asking me to bring millions to share”.
Although Obi won in that contest but he was rigged out by PDP’s Chris Ngige mercenaries, he finally recovered his mandate after 3 years of legal battle where the Court of Appeal on March 15, 2006 sacked Ngige and declared him the rightful winner.
In 2023 he was widely accepted by the Obidient faithful. These youths spent their personal monies to move from one point to another to mobilize support for him. A large chunk of money shared to Obidient members to mobilize voters in 2023, was raised by some Obidient in diaspora.Obi spent very little or nothing from his pocket
All elections in 2027 will be very competitive. And considering Nigeria style of politics, the highest bidder will take the shine from the most popular candidate. That’s is Obi’s major challenge in his 2027 outing.
