2023: “Peter Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd” – Sam Omotseye

By KEMI KASUMU

The Nation Newspapers’ popular columnist, Mr. Sam Omatseye, whose April 12, 2022 tweet put Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Dr. Peter Obi, off as an office seeker without a grand vision to be Nigeria’s next President, has come with yet another blow to the face of the former Governor of Anambra State.

Omatseye said, not only the apostle of regional leaning Obidients has turned out to be an excuse for Biafrans to betray their course without anyone raising an eyebrow but also, that he has now become a safe haven for miscreants and activists of the crowd to thrive. 

It will recalled hat Peter Obi declared his interest to run for the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023 on Thursday March 24, 2022 in Akwa, Anambra State capital, under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Part of his statement read that, “I have come to inform you of my intention to contest the 2023 presidential election. I need your support. The Nigeria I will lead will create jobs, boost our economy, improve education. If I have the opportunity, I will turn around the country for the better.

“I will move Nigeria from a consuming nation to a producing nation. As a Nigerian, I want all parts of the country to be secured. I’m not aspiring for a political position, but to serve the country,” he said.

Reacting to the declaration, Sam Omatseye via his Twitter handle questioned Peter Obi on his achievements as governor of Anambra State between 2006 and 2014 under the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). He further added that “Obi has no grand vision”.

Obi has seen been jilted by PDP and has seen moved on with his ambition to rule Nigeria, which majority of his current followers not only do not believe in except as a Zoo, using the Labour Party as platform to drive.

On Monday August 1, 2022, Sam Omotseye, this time, moved beyond just a Twitter handle to his mainstream newspaper column article in The Nation titled, “Obi-tuary”, and simply painted what he believes is true picture of a man that is currently being touted as the man Nigeria needs.

The veteran Journalist said: “Suddenly, it is all quiet on the eastern front. No street heckles or flag waving or mooning over a yellow sun, no hooting or baying in public. The rabble no longer raves. Few wonder what happened to the Nnamdi Kanu crowd. Some may wonder if they are withering?

“The answer is before our eyes. The Biafran babblers are alive and well. They just swapped icons, rechristened the shrines and rewrote the rites. They left the prophet for a secular priest. They have had a switch of battle gear.

“Maybe it is not quiet. We can hear and feel the cacophony. The chants and caterwauling are everywhere, especially on the phones. The twitter bees, the Instagram grimes, the Facebook freaks. They are alive and well, but they have not been at war at the side of their icon, who is griping in detention.

“It’s farewell Kanu. Welcome Obi, at least until the new priest peters out. They are at his worship. They embrace it because it does not, for the first time in years, feel like they are outside the mainstream. They are not falling foul of the law, not howling from the fringes. They have Peter Obi as their man. He is mainstream. He belongs, not to the MASSOB, or Kanu’s assembly called IPOB. They can say they have a legitimate tribe and rhetoric. They may pretend to love Nigeria. They may claim to embrace INEC, cling to a political party no one in the police or DSS will harangue.

“But that is where it stops. They have transferred the temperament of their former master into the new. And they have not spared any incoherence, any lack of finesse, and threats and tantrums, any show of rabid, primitive cants, or any ululations. They have abused, cursed, thrown imprecations. They have hugged lies about their candidate. They have pelted lies about others. They have distorted material.

“Obi has turned out to be an excuse for even closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it. This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd.

“Obi knows this. He is happy to be their catharsis, to be their excuse for unfurling their bile at the system, for acting like revolutionaries. He is playing to it by acting as though he is the saint of Nigerian politics. Perhaps the purists of the Biafran cause are unhappy, and they unleashed a past video clip of Kanu on the social media. In it, Kanu lashes out at Obi as governor and stated what this essayist wrote about him over building a NEXT supermarket while still the governor of Anambra State. The video clip referred to him as a sort of sexual being on the fringe. You can imagine an Aso Rock sweltering with romps of the evil flesh. His so-called Obidients know this. But it counts for little,” Sam Omatseye said.