Valentine Obienyem
Over seventy per cent of trending political news across Nigerian social media spaces centres on Mr Peter Obi. Almost every government-sponsored surrogate or state apologist makes Obi their defining obsession. I was reliably informed that the singular quest for a knockout blow against Obi was the very impetus behind Mr. Nyesom Wike’s monthly media chats. Tell me: has there been any of those television spectacles that did not degenerate into relentless fixations on Obi?
Dominating current discourse are the caustic effusions of Obi’s former running mate, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed; the unscholarly assertions of Professor Femi Otubanjo; and, in stark and refreshing contrast, the profound words of Chief Pete Edochie – reflections that could easily serve as a textbook on political decorum and governance.
Professor Otubanjo took to national television to dismiss Peter Obi’s presidential quest on the curious ground that Obi lacks oratorical power. He characterised Obi’s delivery as ‘flat’ and his campaign as ‘bland’, implying that such plainness betrays a lack of the intellectual depth required for the presidency. Worse still, like so many uninspired commentators who view national issues through tribal prisms, the professor sought to diminish Obi’s profound, patriotic offering – the presentation of his competence, character, and track record to salvage a sinking Nigeria – reducing it to nothing more than a cathartic regional reaction prompted by a parochial urge to represent the South-East. It is the classic refuge of intellectual indolence: whenever a leader steps forward with a genuine pan-Nigerian vision to rescue the commonwealth, small minds hasten to box him into an ethnic enclosure.
Yet Otubanjo’s thesis quickly dissolved under the pressure of Mr. Rufai Oseni’s incisive interrogation. Cornered by elementary logic, the professor was forced to concede that Bola Tinubu also lacks the power of oratory. Desperate to salvage his position, he hurriedly pivoted, arguing that Tinubu’s absence of eloquence is excused by a ‘proven political record’ dating back decades. Does this track record include the activities over which the president is in court in the USA, trying to block those records for which the international community is serenading Nigeria in mockery?
Here lies the intellectual bankruptcy of the argument. When the oratorical deficit belongs to Tinubu, it is dismissed as immaterial because there is a record to examine, which is even ironically being blocked; but when that same attribute is observed in Obi, it is suddenly elevated into an insurmountable disqualification. Why this glaring double standard? If oratory is not the index of leadership in Tinubu’s case, on what ground does it become the gold standard in Obi’s? The honest intellectual exercise is to place the records, character, competence, and verifiable achievements of both men on the exact same scale – judging them by the substance of their stewardship rather than the theatricality of their speech.
Place Otubanjo’s flawed metrics side by side with Chief Pete Edochie’s elder wisdom. Edochie reviewed Obi’s public utterances and marvelled at his unmatched maturity. He recalled Obi’s posture during the aftermath of the flawed 2023 election: ‘I am not quarrelling whoever was proclaimed the president, no. I am bothered about the process that made that person president.’ As Edochie noted with admiration, that is how a truly intelligent and civilised leader speaks.
Edochie further underscored Obi’s extraordinary restraint in the face of vicious, daily character assassination: ‘Look at all the people who insulted Peter. He never responded with imprecations to any of them. Some of them traduced his character, they calumniated him, but still, you know, he will say, “He is my elder brother, he is entitled to this.”’
Edochie made direct reference to the unprovoked hostility from Anambra’s governor, reminding us of Obi’s legendary response: ‘Well, I am a trader. I did my best as a trader. He is a professor, eh-heh, let him do his best. He is my brother.’ Edochie’s conclusion was definitive: that is how intelligent men conduct themselves.
Nigeria’s tragedy has never been a scarcity of sweet-tongued demagogues. Our history is littered with smooth-talking politicians who held audiences spellbound with florid prose and beautiful deliveries, while plunging the nation into debt, poverty, and institutional decay. Oratory is theatrical; governance is operational. What Nigeria desperately needs today is not an actor delivering theatrical rhetoric, but a leader anchored in prudence, character, emotional intelligence, and verifiable integrity. Pete Edochie saw that substance clearly; Professor Otubanjo chose to look the other way. But thoughtful Nigerians know the truth.
I cannot fathom how, given the professor’s intellectual pedigree and supposed grasp of moral propriety, he could offer an intervention so thoroughly unworthy of his standing. Look across Nigeria today: our political sphere is bleak and uninspiring; our economic reality borders on absolute ruin; and our religious arena is degraded by leaders who do little more than prey upon the sentiments of the devout. In such a desert, oratory or no oratory, we must count it among the true wonders of contemporary history that one man, whether by deliberate design or sheer historical imperative, has galvanised this profound public desolation into a unified, searing cry for justice and good governance.
To reduce such a historic awakening to the petty, reflexive calculus of tribe, as the professor has sought to do, is not merely unscholarly; it is deeply tragic. It is all the more disheartening that it comes from a man whom many Nigerians would never have believed could be afflicted by provincialism.
Today, state-sponsored apparatuses, oiled from both Abuja and allied state capitals, have unleashed every variety of digital mercenary to tear down this movement. There is no hornet, gnat, or surrogate that does not swarm towards Peter Obi to buzz irritatingly in his ears. We suffer the ceaseless, bad-faith commentary from men totally lacking in character: the likes of Reno Omokri, Daniel Bwala, Bayo Onanuga, Kenneth Okonkwo, and Femi Fani-Kayode. They have their local counterparts aspiring to be like them in names like Izuchukwu Adichie, Jonas Onwuasoanya, Ejimofor Opara, and the homosexual pervert expelled from three seminaries: Dr Chukwuma Kpontus Okafor from Omasi. It takes an exhausting measure of restraint – the type an Edochie will applaud in future – not to tell these men to their faces just how hollow, servile, and utterly devoid of principle their performances have become.
Meanwhile, the substantive reality of our governance remains dire. President Bola Tinubu, visibly enfeebled by age and probably also
by having indulged in the wares of his youthful trade, lacks the vigour and clarity required to pilot the ship of state through the stormy waters of our present crisis. The professor knows this; he lamented Tinubu’s lack of ‘recollection’, yet was apparently too tribally conditioned to acknowledge that total lack of recollection is among the grave disqualifications of men who should govern states.
What has Tinubu not done to this country? In borrowing, his administration has violated every sane calculus of limitation. He has effectively abdicated governance, surrendering the state to surrogates and operators like Femi Gbajabiamila and Nyesom Wike, who treat the nation’s survival as a spoils system.
In fairness, one cannot condemn an incumbent for failing to achieve that which lies entirely beyond his capacity. Going by Otubanjo’s observations, he probably cannot even recall this lack of capacity and qualification to govern the realm. One can only mourn the narrow-mindedness of the establishment apologists, Professor Otubanjo included, who still defend this decay.
Under this administration, Nigeria has reached the absolute zenith of misgovernance, and history will offer no absolution to those labouring to preserve it. Far from rented praise-singers, Nigerians across the digital public square are burning this failed leadership in effigy. Nigeria yearns for a leader dedicated unreservedly to the nation rather than to self-enrichment – a figure tireless, unyielding, and incorruptible.
In every civilisation, a moment arrives when old habits and decaying institutions must be fundamentally re-examined if society is to survive irresistible historical currents. From all indications, and the professor must know this, Peter Obi is the precise instrument of that national re-examination, oratory or no oratory.
During his public outings, Obi speaks with a lucid, unvarnished intensity about structural reform, slashing the bloated cost of governance, and pulling millions out of government-induced poverty. The millions of youths who hang upon his words do not miss the professor’s anticipated theatrical bombast – oratory; rather, they feel the electric thrill that runs through his stinging, factual indictments of state actors. They remember his past and are poised to secure a brighter future under his stewardship.
Indeed, Obi carries himself with the quiet dignity instilled decades ago. When he first assumed office as Governor of Anambra State, his elder brother, Chief Dominic Obi , offered him counsel worthy of an ancient sage, words that continue to anchor his public life: ‘Be polite, humane, accessible, compassionate, and liberal-minded. Do not let your grandeur prevent you from condescending with kindness towards the humble, and putting yourself in their place. See that this, however, does not weaken your authority nor diminish their respect. Reject all artificiality. Do not allow the world to contaminate you to the point of losing the ancient principles of honour and virtue.’ This has remained his guiding principle.
Too many Nigerian public intellectuals have conveniently subordinated what ought to be an independent and critical examination of the country to partisan expediency, systematically blunting their personal discernment between right and wrong. They mistake manufactured theatrics for statecraft. Yet, as the veteran icon Pete Edochie rightly observed, Obi’s composure under fire is not a badge of weakness, but the clearest mark of genuine intellectual and emotional maturity.
Nigeria’s history is littered with golden-tongued demagogues who delivered grandiloquent speeches from campaign podiums, only to leave citizens in the clutches of economic misery, insecurity, and broken promises. Leadership is neither a dramatic recitation nor an exercise in empty rhetoric. What his critics dismiss as a flat, or ‘blank’ delivery is precisely what millions revere: plain, unadorned truth grounded in verifiable facts, statistics, empirical data, prudence, and moral rectitude. Where political showmen rely on transient soundbites, Obi relies on unshakeable character. In a republic starving for integrity, substance will forever outshine performance – oratory.
While Nigerians across ethnic and religious divides continue to rally around the substance, character, and prudence of Peter Obi, Professor Femi Otubanjo can continue his academic wanderlust in search of an elusive composite of Cicero and Demosthenes. But one wonders: will his convenient fixation with rationalising Bola Tinubu’s failings even allow him the intellectual honesty to pursue that search? He is already compromised!