OBI: THE PROMETHEAN MANDATE

In the fable, PROMETHEUS steals fire from mount Olympus, the abode of Zeus. In defiance of Zeus, he gifts the fire to humans thereby revolutionising the existence of man. In anger, Zeus binds Prometheus to the precipice of a mountain, leaving him there in an eternal cycle of living and dying.

In 2023, Prometheus was ostensibly unbound in Nigeria through the Peter Obi phenom. This column wrote a couple of articles interrogating the Prometheus syndrome and drawing parallels to Obi.

Again, in 2023, an election like in no other time in Nigeria’s history was held. The election turned out to be a turning point in the annals of Nigeria.

There was awareness like in no other time; there was voter registration like in no other time; there was voter turn-out like in no other time; there were candidates like in no other time and a landslide victory was recorded like in no other time!

But there was also an election finagling (like in no other time) in which an election umpire led by a certain Professor Yakubu Mahmoud rigged the election like in no other time and had to announce the results in the dead of night while the nation was in deep slumber… like in no other time!

INDICATOR: Imagine an election that had over 90 million registered voters with accredited voters turnout hitting about 80 million across the country.

But after the Mahmoud midnight magic, only about 27 million voters were recorded to have voted eventually.

Overnight, Nigeria’s highest voter turn-out in history was reduced to the least – barely 10 percent! Never in the history of Nigeria has any president won election with 10% voters turn out!

Someday, Prof. Mahmoud would have to explain how he cannibalised about 50 million Nigerians who turned out to exercise their rights on February 25, 2023.

In what may yet be recorded as the darkest day in Nigeria’s electoral epoch.

Someday, Prof. Mahmoud would explain to his God, how hundreds of millions of dollars worth of electronic voting systems comprising iREV and BVAS devices suffered a “GLITCH,” at the critical moments and would not record real-time, presidential election figures.

But the same devices released results for legislative candidates on the same ballot paper, held same day!

Huge investments and efforts made to ensure that the 2023 election process would be more transparent and fair were sabotaged by INEC!

Alas, Nigeria, nay, the world was aghast watching Nigeria and her electoral umpire (NEC) fumble and wobble for four days over vote collation process the world had long perfected and made almost foolproof.

THE PROMETHEAN MANDATE: Two years after his mandate, freely and unanimously given to him by Nigerians was brazenly stolen, Nigeria is yet again being dragged to the hustings so early in the day for the 2027 voting rounds.

The ruling party APC, the aider and beneficiary of the 2023 election heist and INEC, the mastermind of the fraud have pretended all was well.

INEC deigns to be holding elections in states but are only perpetuating the FRAUD OF 2023! They have never fully explained the so-called “glitch” neither have they reviewed the entire election.

NO RESULTS OF THE LAST PRESIDENTIAL POLLS ON INEC’S DIGITAL MEMORY!
No discussions about the electronic voting systems INEC promised us, which we paid for, but which failed woefully.

Since 2023, INEC has been carrying out elections in the old, crude manuality that was designed for rigging. INEC has deviously jettisoned the electronic voting system!

But it seems delicately poised that the Promethean momentum remains even more poignant now than in 2023.

It appears more likely this time that there’s a Promethean mandate not only to fire up Nigeria but to light up the redemptive fire to cleanse the land once and for all times.

Obi, the outsider candidate, the X-factor clearly won the election but was brushed aside by Nigeria’s old guard led by a Bola Tinubu and an Atiku Abubakar.

Using the instruments of state (electoral body, the armed forces and the judiciary), Obi’s victory was stolen and the fire of rebirth was turned to a simmering charcoal of anger and angst.

Obi was half vilified for dropping the gauntlet of leadership. Those, including some of his ardent followers, called OBiDIENTS, taunted him and called him lilly-livered. They said he failed at the critical juncture, and missed the moment of thunder and history.

They mocked that he didn’t grasp the magnitude of the hour; that he cowered when the last lap of the race was to merely embrace the barricades and watch the revolution begin.

But Obi demurred.

He would not participate in body count in order to lead Nigeria. He wants to right the wrongs in Nigeria but not by weaponising the cadaver of Nigerian youths who would fill up the streets of Nigeria at his behest.

Unlike the remnants of the old guard (like Tinubu and Atiku), Obi is not desperate to be president; he is desperate to make Nigeria a better place for all. He says this all the time.

Despite the 2023 setback, the Obi fire has continued to seeth and simmer since the last election.

Just as he has done since he left office as two-term governor of Anambra State in 2014, he has continued to push his brand of targeted philanthropy as if his money grows on iroko trees.

No other Nigerian politician matches his charity outreach; doling out billions of Naira to support struggling educational and health institutions.

No other politician in Nigeria’s history who ran or is running a state, ever left excess funds in long-term government bonds. In fact, this column would wager that many Nigerian governors never heard of sovereign bonds, not to contemplate using it for the benefit of their people.

In fact, EXPRESSO insists that nigh all governors in Nigeria merely borrow heaps of funds, pilfer much of it and pile up debts for their people after eight years.

Obi proved the exception.

He never borrowed a dime, he owed not a dime and he trumped most of his contemporaries, carrying out holistic and integrated development of Anambra while he led it. He was nonpareil as a Nigerian governor.

TINUBU AND THE SINKING APC SHIP:
The ruling party APC, is a certified debacle. APC today reminds us of a Nigerian Titanic sailing to Port Perdition. It’s only a matter of time for it to get to its destination unless arrested and re-coursed.

We thought the late President Muhammadu Buhari was a poor leader, but Bola Tinubu has turned out far worse than Buhari, a class apart!

In fact, Tinubu today holds the record as the worst president in Nigeria’s history. You don’t even need to have a head to understand the negative indices… every Nigerian can feel it.

Tinubu is the worst because he’s the most corrupt of all.

One example will suffice: THE DANGOTE REFINERY was Tinubu’s low hanging fruit; it was to be the catalyst with which to ignite a monumental socioeconomic change.

But Tinubu chose to hijack the entirety of Nigeria’s oil for himself!
Consider this tragic paradox: Dangote Refineries (DR) has capacity to supply most of Nigeria’s (and indeed, Africa’s) petroleum products needs. But Tinubu is at loggerheads with DR. This explains why NNPC STILL IMPORTS REFINED PETROLEUM PRODUCTS while DANGOTE STILL IMPORTS CRUDE OIL.
Again, NNPC spent billions of dollars in fixing three of Nigeria’s refineries, yet not one is working.

Tinubu cannot prosecute the NNPC executives who perpetrated this demonic fraud because his hands are tied by his own quota of malfeasance in the oil industry.

IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS
The year, 2027 has to be the year of the Promethean Mandate. It can only be divine that a Peter Obi is on hand to lead it.

And it’s not ordinary that he has become the icon and face of Nigeria’s democratic ethos today.

Tinubu and his APC have come to the end of their tether. While Buhari took Nigeria to the bush, Tinubu is unheededly, taking her deep into the jungle, far beyond redemption.

In 2027, a redemptive Armageddon shall be enacted at the polls to preserve the soul of our great nation, Nigeria.