Still on the Obasanjo endorsement

SIR: It’s no longer news that Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has endorsed the candidacy of the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi ahead of the February 25, election.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) saw the development as a swipe against its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu. The party, in response, reckoned that Obasanjo’s endorsement is indeed worthless. In the same vein, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) argued that the former ruler’s endorsement of Obi will amount to nothing. And the Presidency capped it all when it fired back at Obasanjo, describing him as a ‘morally dirty’ person.

Peter Obi has, no doubt, won the hearts of thousands of young people, especially in the south. But his chances of winning the 2023 elections are already threatened by a lot of factors.

First, LP does not have the structure to command any key political position in the country. This is a party that doesn’t have a governor, doesn’t have members of the National Assembly, and doesn’t have state assembly members. And politics in this country depends on the structures you have at these various levels at the local, state and at the national level; so it is very difficult to expect a miracle to happen simply because Peter Obi is in the Labour Party.

The LP opportunity to flex its muscles in the July 2022 Osun State governorship election ended in tears as the former deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and candidate of the Labour Party, Lasun Yusuf, lost the election. In fact, he has since joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Second, the Southeast which ideally should have been Obi’s major fan base is already swept away in the floodwaters of all sorts of Biafra agitations. Armed separatists have continuously warned that there’ll be no election in the region. It’s a no-brainer to imagine that Obi is definitely going to perform poorly in the polls in the Southeast as even gunmen have repeatedly attacked INEC offices.

But is Obasanjo’s support even relevant?

History would tell better.

In 2019, he supported his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, against incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari won that election.

But we shouldn’t judge very quickly because the candidates Obasanjo (president from 1999 to 2007) supported in the presidential elections in 2007, 2011 and 2015 all emerged victorious. What is imperative to note is that Obasanjo’s political force in the Southwest is already fading.

As the PDP and APC continues to lock horns over who would take over the Southwest and South-south, and as the APC continues to be a strong force in the North, it’s a crude joke to imagine that Obasanjo’s endorsement of Peter Obi carries any weight, at least in the forthcoming presidential election.