Something about Peter Obi By SAM ADZEGEH
a. From Obituary to Omatseuary
Nothing in his entire being could have convinced him that the backlash would be so ferocious.
Like his employer Ahmed Bola Tinubu and his Mu-Mu ticket misadventure, no babalawo would have dissuaded Sam Omatseye, renowned columnist and brilliant journalist, from penning and publishing that infamous piece, which he suicidally titled ‘Obituary’.
Today, Omatseye is running scared, his fingers thoroughly scalded from the fire of negative responses that have risen to Obi’s defence.
The prolific writer is not alone on the road to perdition, a consequence of (unprovoked) attacks on the latest poster boy of Nigerian politics.
c: Trials of Fr. Mbaka
If it is of any comfort, Omatseye can console himself with the fact that he is trudging this unhappy path with one well known priest who is, ironically, Obi’s ‘ony’Igbo’ brother.
Reverend Mbaka of Adoration ministries, who had for long been riding a crest of awesome popularity following his accurate doomsday prediction of the end of a previous President in the not too distant past. Mbaka however appeared to have stretched his ebbing prophetic admonitions too far when he descended on the cherubic faced Obi, describing him as being too ‘selfish’.
Curiously, Fr. Mbaka proclaimed to the world that for this reason, Obi would never take a peek at, not to mention sitting on, PMB’s throne which he so openly covets. Since when did prudent management of resources become a crime or a requirement for disqualification, people wondered?
Last time I saw him, Mbaka was in the very sorry company of one Sam Omatseye on the road to Armageddon. Thoroughly chastised, he published a lame apology which nobody cared for or bothered to read.
c: Ekweremmadu and the kidney matter
Somewhere in this mix, one prominent Nigerian politician, a former Deputy Senate President, no less, had taken his own pot shot at the LP Presidential candidate.
Ike Ekweremmadu, another Ony’Igbo (why must it be them?) took to world media to make some very uncharitable comments about Obi. Today Ekweremmadu is pining away in a foreign gulag, his beautiful wife having just been released ‘da kierr!’. Ike must still be wondering, like most of us, wetin go concern am with dat small boy ‘blokos’, as many village folk have taken to referring to this matter of the young man’s kidney!
c: Asiwaju’s travails
Tinubu himself recently came out to attack Obi, falsely accusing him of bad mouthing opponents and calling on him to prevail on his millions of ‘Obidients’ to refrain from making derogatory comments about the Asiwaju or otherwise decampaigning him. But even as Obi maintained his usual coy(?) silence, his teeming Obidients have taken up his defense, with most wondering how their new leader had crossed Tinubu? The bolder ones have even gone further to question whether Obi is, or has ever been, among those who have dragged Asiwaju to several courts on account of every detail of his very shady life, including his name, parental and educational background, drug dealings, and just about every other thing under the sun.
But pray, what is it about Obi? Is it that he hails from the (politically) most cheated region in Nigeria and thus rightly deserves sold right to the 2023 Presidency as Obj looked BAT in the eye and told him this bitter truth? Or is it that his saueaky-clean tenure as Anambra State singles him out as a rare gem among Nigeria’s political crowd?
Whichever way you cut it, there’s something about Obi.