~ Written by Akin Omoz-Oarhe.
PREAMBLE
“TAWFIQ AKINWALE THE GOVERNORSHIP CANDIDATE OF THE LABOUR PARTY IN OYO STATE HAS ALLEGED THAT PRESIDENT-ELECT BOLA TINUBU ASKED PAT UTOMI TO STEP DOWN FOR PETER OBI IN THE BUILD-UP TO 2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS”
Interesting. The truth is surfacing now. Some day, the full story will be told. You may now understand why in a post, about two months ago, I called Peter Obi “Suegbe Politician”. Peter Obi may not know the fact of this plot that he made himself the main instrument used in making Tinubu the President of Nigeria.
Now, read on….
THE STORY
▪️The full story started with OBJ’s formation of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) in 2018 through his usual Letter Writing. CNM was planned to metamorphose into a political party to push both APC and PDP off the political scene. As he could not form a party of his own and was late to do so for 2019 election, Obasanjo decided to use Falae’s SDP as the base party. Once he went into alliance with SDP, he asked Falae to surrender to him, INEC Certificate of Registration of SDP. Immediately, Falae realized that the old Fox wanted to take the party from him and quickly he dissolved the alliance.
▪️Next OBJ got about 20 unknown ‘one-man-party’ to merge with his Coalition. It was at this time Pat Utomi and Agbakoba had just formed Nigerian Intervention Movement (NIM) and they joined Obasanjo. Together they fused into ADC that contested the 2019 presidential election. Obasanjo ran into difficulties hand picking the presidential candidate and had to fall behind the party’s choice of Obadiah Mailafia who placed 4th with 97,874 votes in the election.
▪️Obasanjo had learnt three lessons:
(1) He started too late to form a party of his own.
(2) Falae showed him the it would be difficult to take over an existing party.
(3)Obadiah showed him that he could not hand-pick a presidential candidate from a pot pouri of scores of political parties that joined to form an alliance.
He decided to start early for 2023 with the formation of a fresh Mega Party from the scratch.
▪️That was when he conceived the idea of planting the seed for the mega party. He started off with what he called “The National Project”. He got the commitment of Gen Gambo and Hakeem Datti Ahmed to sell the project to Northern Elders Forum when the party took off. He also got the conditional support of IBB if the party became viable.
▪️OBJ knows that his face in a new political party will scare off interested joiners. He decided that Pat Utomi and Agbakoba would be his face in the new party. They were commissioned to go form a new mega-party. They went to work and formed National Consultative Front (NCFront),
▪️The were able to get Prof Jega, Dr. Abdul Jhali, Tafawa Balewa, Duke, Ezekwesili, Naseer Kura, Idika Kalu; Dan Suleiman; Shettima Yerima; Bassey Ewa Henshaw; Osita Chidoka; Buba Galadima, Debe Odumegwu Ojukwu etc to join. In 2022, they announced a mega rally for the formation of the Mega-party. It was then they realized that politics is not about noise making in newspapers. They were disappointed. Just nobody showed up. It was a complete failure. Again Obasanjo had ‘lulẹ’
▪️Meanwhile INEC had decided to prune down on the number of registered parties from almost 90 to less than 20. So the chances of a new party geting registered had become zero. This forced Pat Utomi and Agbakoba to go for the next best alternative. They moved into the Labor Party but Obasanjo was no longer interested. His early start was to prevent merging with an existing party.
▪️About this time, INEC had set a deadline for all political parties to submit the names of their Presidential candidates. Pat Utomi and Agbakoba were confused. Obasanjo had left them and they had missed the opportunity of being part of the big political parties. To Utomi, how would it look returning to APC. Remember he had become big in APC where he unsuccessfully contested for nomination as APC Governorship candidate in Delta State in 2018. As a Butter and Bread politician, the opportunity had drawn him close to Tinubu, the acclaimed “National Leader of APC”. He made a move to return to APC.
GBAM!!!
That is where the Almighty Political Strategist came into the show. Remember he once said: “In the face of the storm, we stay calm. When the stage is set we display the ideas that stood us apart.” That opportunity had come.
To Pat Utomi…
♾ “No Stay there”
♾ “Pick up their Presidential Candidacy”
♾ “Let the Labour Party send your name as a Presidential Candidate in the ‘Place Holder’ status”
♾ “The PDP is a formidable party and since 2019, APC has lost so much goodwill and terribly weakened. To fight PDP, we must fight them from within. We must scatter them”.
♾ “While holding the presidential place, we shall look for a heavy player in PDP to lure out to pick the presidential candidacy of Labour Party and help to scatter their votes”.
♾ “I have my eyes on two people with high ambition. The first is Wike but I think that one is too principled and may not agree to leave PDP. That apart, he has a big chance to get the PDP slot.
♾ “The second that we have a good chance to hook is….em..em..em.. Oh my gosh. I have forgotten his name. That one that has a female voice. He ran as Atikus running mate in 2019.”
♾ “Yes Peter Obi. Peter Obi. Yes that is his name. He is struggling to be running mate to Atiku, but with what he did to Atiku in 2019 – he refused to contribute a kobo to the campaign – Atiku will never have him. That is the best person to hook
♾ “You must not let Obasanjo know this otherwise he will spoil it. There is no way Agbakoba an Igboman from Anambra State will know it and know that it is to my advantage, a Yoruba, and allow it. Dont tell him. In fact convince him to join also as a ‘Place Holder’”
♾ “I wish us luck. Keep me informed.
▪️Pat Utomi and Agbakoba became “Place Holders” in LP and serious work started on ‘Suegbe’ Peter Obi to move out of PDP into Labour Party.
▪️Peter Obi was being shunned by Atiku. He decided to join the Presidential race to increase his visibility within the party but that was not changing Atiku’s mind to have him as his running mate. Peter Obi knew that there was no way he would get 5 votes in the nomination contest as all the Igbo had decided to file behind Ayim Pius Ayim. This was the point Pat Utomi contacted him.
▪️The LP nomination convention had been slated for the 22nd. He was running late. He moved swiftly; reported at LPs Office on 20th May 2022, the presidential ‘Place Holders’ stepped down for him. They got IPOB to threaten the only one that refused to step down. So Peter Obi became Labour Party Presidential Candidate on 22nd May. Having safely secured the position, on 24th May 2022 he wrote his letter of resignation from PDP. The letter was received by the party Chairman in their Wadata Head offices on 27th May.
NOTE
The Electoral law says all party Registers must close a minimum of 30 days to any party election and only party members in the register are eligible to run for election. Since LP Nomination election was for 22nd May, only persons whose names were in LP register at the latest on 22nd April were eligible to be party aspirants. Of course Peter Obis name was not in that register. Worse still, up till 27th May, Peter Obis name was still in PDP Register.
▪️Can you now understand why APC never said a word about this obvious illegitimacy of Peter Obi’s candidacy in that Presidential election? Just imagine if Peter Obi had been disqualified and his 6.1m votes went back to Atikus 7m as against BATs 8.9m. That is why the Jagaban said: “In the face of the storm, we stay calm. When the stage is set we display the ideas that stood us apart.”
▪️Will you be surprised if, in the name of “Broad based Government and National Integration”, BAT gives Pat Utomi a political appointment? Una no know notin. Politics🤔is not a game for the faint hearted.
▪️Do you notice that Agbakoba simply vanished from the scene after Peter Obi came in and never campaigned for him. I feel he got to know later that he had been used. He could not make any noise about it because it was a shame that he, who was normally thought to be cerebral was so cheaply used.
▪️When the race had started, and the OBIdients moved in to give a semblance that Peter Obi was being received OBJ returned to give a helping hand which on the long run did not work. I am sure he now knows what happened. He, that normally thinks that he is only next to God in wisdom now sees that Wisdom and brute force are two different things. He must now be feeling bad that he was a big instrument in the making of BAT that he dislikes with passion, President.
~Akin Omoz-Oarhe.
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