Successful rally shows Peter Obi has a chance

 

Heartwarming scenes at the peaceful rally for Peter Obi's mandate across Nigeria on Independence Day. (Photo credit: Twitter)

To be honest, I have my reservations about the chances of Peter Obi at the 2023 polls for lots of reasons but yesterday’s development, even if it doesn’t necessarily answer much might be an indication that 2015 is possible all over again.

I will totally ignore what Peter Obi can do when or if he wins simply because I don’t have enough sample to judge if we’re keeping it a buck and we’re not analyzing from the armchair or from uninformed emotions; I will dwell on yesterday and a few lessons I learned.

I was not in any way involved in the Independence Day rally and that has zero bearing on my choices at the coming polls; I have not seen any report of assault or molestation on anyone and it’s important to laud that; did the government learn from #EndSars or it’s a ploy to be in good light ahead of elections?

I was a little worried about the outcome of the rally and I will be honest; this is simply because I had doubts about the intentions and behaviors of my people. We can lie to ourselves but we mismanaged #EndSars when we lost focus and gave room for unnecessary shenanigans.

It was widely reported that participants were well behaved and apart from one or two overelaborations –like a bus driver that came down from a moving bus and was dancing and one or two missing phones, it was a successful rally and that speaks highly of our maturity from October 2020.

Secondly, the message was very clear. I read some interesting copy on the communication materials and I can’t but marvel at the creativity on display. We are a talented bunch and only a little unfortunate to be under the guard of some selfish and clueless idiots but it looks like we’re about to come out of the doldrums.

I saw lots of videos across the country and it’s heartwarming for me. I know it’s been about a party with no structure and a group of people without spine; I still have doubts about those things that are not in our control but yesterday’s Peter Obi rally could be massive for the change we need.

I am aware of the funny lots that took advantage of the march to register Twitter trends LOL; it’s not like we don’t know that Judas ran rings amongst the disciples that year. My heart is close to those that lost their phones but can we all toast to the fact that no life was lost?

Let’s hope the numbers we saw yesterday would be seen at the polls, I am convinced that a great turnout will make it hard for these “agbayas” to rig, I also believe they will cancel themselves out one way or the other but at the end of the day, the big question would lie in the quality of the people’s candidate… Over to you Peter Obi.