“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes people and inculcates ideas is a true revolution” — Martin Luther king Jr.
After the advent of the protest, dubbed Endsars, in 2020, I’ve since been keenly watching and observing the intractable exuberance being displayed by some Nigerian youths.
Of course their leaderless and unguided protest, Endsars, and other protests, which these youths had engaged in so far had exposed their immature and mediocre way of handling things.
The unripe method, which they employed to carry out the Endsars protest, undoubtedly, impaired and lessened the value of a protest which would have been seen as the most organized and most effective. But because those high-spirited and enthusiastic youths knew not when to stop, the protest was hijacked, and what would have earned them a commendation metamorphosed into condemnation.
And here comes another movement tagged OBIdient. I, without a doubt, do not see this as a visionary movement for it lacks ideas. An insightful movement, as being described by Martin Luther king Jr, moves ideas not only people.
These young guys, since they started their OBIdient movement have become terrors on social media and wherever they have engagement with anyone who’s out of tune with their movement. They always only want to hear their own voices.
Before the conduct of the just concluded presidential election, OBIdients, instead of telling the public exactly the reason they were supporting their candidate, Peter Obi – who was once a governor for eight years in Anambra state, but could hardly point to some achievements he had instituted while in office – they only prefered to call for the head of whoever came out to ask their candidate to explain succinctly his antecedents. OBIdients cared less about their candidate’s blueprint. They just wanted him to become a president by all means.
And after the electorate had spoken with their votes, and had chosen their preferred candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we thought that OBIdients would go back to the drawing board; re-strategize, and wait for another opportunity in 2027. But instead, they went ahead to take up more arms on social media, and has been wielding the arms against anyone who’s not ready to join their movement or anyone, who unearth and shows their candidate’s weaknesses. They want everyone to see Peter Obi, their candidate, as a saint.
Even Prof. Wole Soyinka could not espape OBIdients’ dagger. They came out in full force to attack the respected professor just because the running-mate to their messiah, Datti Yusuf, was corrected over his inciteful comment on a television station. Kinsley Moghalu, the former deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, was not also spared for trying to defend Prof. Soyinka’s honest submission. Mr Moghalu had to come out to apologize publicly to avoid Obidients’ endless sanctions on social media. What a confused generation!
Even the intelligentsias among OBIdients also have joined these young guys to believe that the election process that gave their candidate victories in all the states in the south east where their candidate came from, and also gave him, a southeasterner, unprecedented victories in some parts of the north including the federal capital territory, Abuja, was not free and fair. Their candidate beat the winner of the election, Asiwaju Tinubu, in his home-ground, Lagos – a feat no candidate had ever come closer to since the return of democracy in 1999. Yet, OBIdients are not satisfied.
These young OBIdients, of course, can be tolerated and be forgiven for their youthful enthusiasm and their ignorance, but how do one describe a renowned author and respected novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, who should have known that the only way that is allowed in the constitution to challenge the result of election in Nigeria is to go to the tribunal to seek redress, and wait for the decision of the court.
Chimamanda’s letter to the president of the United States of America, in which president Joe Biden was criticized for congratulating the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is really mind boggling. Can we say that Chimamanda, as educated and as lettered as she was, was oblivious of the step to take to show one’s dissatisfaction over the outcome of an election? Or, was she trying to play the same game – engaging in self deceit – the young OBIdients are known for?
What could have propelled Chimamanda, after hailing Obi’s victories in Lagos and in all the states in the south-east, to believe that the same election process she had already commended by celebrating Peter Obi’s triumphants in some parts of the country was no more a reflection of people’s wishes?
I think Chimamanda needs to be told and reminded that winning election, most especially presidential election, is quite different from winning a prize for Literature. Winning election/elections requires things that, I believe, are totally glaring to Chimamanda and the young OBIdients. Perhaps the reason for her unnecessary fiction to entertain Joe Biden. Just because the election did not go the way Chimamanda and her Obidients expected warranted not the condemnation of the whole process of course.
Ademola ‘Bablow’ Babalola
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