The thing about Peter Obi’s mob

When people say stuff like ‘Peter Obi’s Mob’ when referring to angry young people who are fed up of the political establishment, they make one fundamental, obvious and maybe deliberate error – They assume that Peter Obi owns this mob.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. This mob owns themselves and reports to no one.

The same unruly mob takes Peter Obi to the cleaners when he missteps, as was obvious when he made an ambiguous post about Ike Ekweremadu’s travails with the Law in the UK. It is this same unruly mob that went into Oseloka Obaze when he acknowledged an individual whose influence they felt was detrimental to the campaign.

When Peter Obi did not declare for the Presidency, the same sets of supporters called him a ‘mumu man’, threatened to sue him if he doesn’t declare for the presidency (lighthearted of course) and they let their disappointment show when Peter Obi chose the politically underwhelming Doyin Okupe as Running Mate forcing Doyin to declare that he is a placeholder, a technicality exploited to meet INEC’s deadline

This mob is not waiting for Peter Obi. They are mobilising, as evidenced by the 1 Million Man March for Obi aimed at arm-twisting the PDP into presenting Peter Obi as their Presidential Candidate. They are everywhere, as submitted by Godwin Obaseki, the Governor of Edo state. They are in your houses, in your rooms, in your schools and your churches and mosques. They are in the North, South, East and West.

They are raising funds, printing branded materials and campaign collaterals. They are driving the recent upsurge in demand for PVC using very innovative digital campaign that exploited all available media and consequently yet inevitably spilled into the streets, straining INEC’s resources and forcing them to postpone the deadline for PVC registration by two months.

Campaign and Support Groups are springing up without Peter Obi’s consent and even beyond his sphere of control. There are about 10 support groups, engaging in different levels of activities and in different places and recently had set up a Obidient TV to serve the purpose of streamlining media activities of a mob that doesn’t want to be told what to do. Peter Obi is struggling to keep up and he cannot.

This mob is both intelligent and stupid, resourceful and unimaginative, in control and unruly, peaceful and belligerent, strategic and random as characteristic of every mob. What we can all agree is that they know the endgame and they are unrelenting.

Armed with a long memory of the betrayal of the people by the political class, worsening standards of living amidst rising cost of living, and a Nigerian society teethering on the precipice of abysmal collapse, leading to an unprecedented exodus of productive youths from Nigeria, this youth-driven mob is taking a last political stand around a candidate that espouses their ideals at least in rhetoric and evidenced by his last outing as a Governor 8 years ago, catapulting Labour Party from oblivion to obviousity.

Peter Obi will be making a huge mistake if he thinks that this mob is standing for him; this mob has become organic, somehow taking a life of its own. It is standing for itself. The Obi-dients are mostly dis-obidients. They feel that Obidience to their elders has messed their country up.

As they embark on what they consider to be the onerous job of saving their country, they have only one ask, move or you will be moved!

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– Tochukwu Okwuanya