By Eric Elezuo

The way the pre-campaign awareness for the 2023 Presidential Election is going presently, it appears the next election is set to split the candidates along ethnic lines.

For the first time since the days of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Second Republic, Nigerians are once again faced with the unenviable assignment of selecting a president among three prominent personalities, each representing the three major tribes of the country, vis a vis Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. The candidates are Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

As a result, as it stands, and from all available statistics, Nigerians are set to again vote along ethnic lines as fireworks from the supporters of the candidates, who have apportioned appellations to themselves, are flying in different directions, striking anyone who stands in their way. While the Tinubu camp says they are Beatified, the Atiku team claim Articulated and Peter Obi supporters hold on to Obidients as their means of identification. These appellations has become a verifiable means of knowing the origin of most personality and system attacks.

But among the three Frontline camps, the Obidients of Mr. Peter Obi seems to be the most vocal, especially on social media platforms as they boast of very young people, who are up and mobile, and have greater access to social media handles.

The Peter Obi (supporters) ‘obidients’ have laid more vocal claim to the presidency, arguing that their candidate has a better agenda for Nigerians, relying on the candidate’s promise of taking back Nigeria and giving it back to the youths. This has made it easy for youths, cutting across creed, who lament marginalisation, to identify with the group, much touted as a movement. The group has however, been accused of intolerance, unaccommodating and in most cases violent, by members of the batified and aticulated, most of whom has responded albeit violently as well.

But as it is, the fight has been narrowed between the ‘Obidients’ and a collection of everyone not under the Obidients umbrella, and better classified as ‘disobidients’. This group can also refer to the Batified and Atikulated.

Though none of the candidates can boast of hundred percent votes of their ethnic groups, the candidate, Peter Obi, has continued to encounter and throw up challenges that seem to put not only his rivals on their feet, but also give the generality of Nigerians a thorough sense of competition, and an opportunity to chart a new course and depart from the old ways. But Obi is facing more challenges as regards his candidature, and so are his Obidients. Among Obi’s challenges are the claims that he is an offshoot of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), and that he is clamouring to actualize the Biafran mandate. This claim has been propounded and portrayed by no less individuals in the society including Mr Sam Omatseye, chairman, editorial board of the Nation Newspaper, owned one of the candidates, Bola Tinubu, in a lampoon he titled Obi-tuary; Reno Omokri, a former aide of former President Goodluck Jonathan and Segun Awosanya, also known as Segalink among others.

Peter Obi is also facing the challenge of being dismissed as running to become an Igbo president by a cross section of persons, who are miffed by his candidature, and the quantum of followership he has amassed within a short period, especially in the social media.

But the major challenge before him is the fact that most of the prominent politicians of Igbo extract are yet to queue behind him in the quest to defeat the two other heavyweights, and wrestle the presidency from the APC-led government.

Speaking in one of the interviews he granted a television station, a former Chairman of the PDP, Anambra State chapter, Dan Ulasi, dismissed Peter Obi’s chances of winning the election, arguing that Obi’s candidature will open up avenue for Tinubu to carry the day.

Ulasi reasoned that as at the present, no prominent Igbo man has identified with Obi and his cause because they believe it is not worth it. He mocked Obi, saying he has no plans to win the votes of the northerners since only the votes of the southeast cannot make him win the election, more so, as the Labour Party failed woefully in the just concluded Osun governorship election

Ulasi said: “The danger of what he is doing is that if our people accept to vote for him, it is equivalent to voting for Tinubu…because to touch a core part of PDP which is the South-East, and they vote for Peter Obi. If there is no way that vote leads us to victory, it is an advantage for Tinubu to win. I don’t see the hard core of APC where it is going to touch. The first election happened in Osun, they failed woefully. The vote you will get in Lagos will be core Ibo votes. They may be up to 20-25 percent. You can mark today’s date and see what the Yorubas will do when it’s time to vote because it is becoming tribal, and every group is now defending their person. If we assume we will defend Peter, where would it lead us to? We would be removed more from the government. We will not be part of the system. But in PDP, not only is Atiku positive for us, he has married an Ibo woman, who has about 4 or 5 children for him. And there is an adage in Ibo land that says ‘your in-law is your god’. This means that once you marry a woman from Ibo land, you are part of us. Also, he has a vice-presidential candidate who is a brilliant medical doctor, a former senator; from Asaba who is a core Ibo boy.

“My people say if your cow is running away, at least if it’s the tail you caught, cut it and hold it. This will tell you; that you still have part of the cow. Looking at APC, we have no touching point at all.

“I spoke to about three governors before coming to Abuja, and I told them that for the sake of our people, they (the five Igbo governors) should call Peter Obi to a meeting, and let him reveal the things he knows that we don’t know. He should explain how he will use our votes to get the vote of other parts of the world to win. And I am asking our 15 Senators from the East to call Peter Obi, and let him tell us how he will win. This is not about personal. Presidency is not a personal issue.”

It is therefore obvious that much as Nigerians may likely vote along ethnic, or religious lines, the battle line is drawn between between the Obidients and the rest of the voters, otherwise unofficially known as disobidients. It is basically a race between those that prefer Peter Obi and those that do not.

But one thing is imperative; the campaigns, programmed to commenced in September, will surely prop up issues and merits under which each each candidate will be sold to the Nigerian voting public.