Opinion
Peter Obi: Through the Lens of a Devil’s Advocate
By Dr jalarth Uche Opara
This certainly will be a long read. You will enjoy it and thank me later.
His name resounds and echoes, seemingly shaking the foundations of corruption. His character appears immaculate, almost snow-white, and the love he commands is remarkably infectious. He seems to have raised the bar of political conduct, making him a target of those whose political dealings stink of deceit, forgery, corruption and embezzlement.
Wherever he goes, the chants of “Obi! Obi! Obi!” reverberate. At times, the ovation seems so overwhelming that it can diminish the political pedigree of whoever happens to be his rival on that stage. If men possessed the ecclesiastical power to canonise saints, Peter Obi might have found himself on many people’ list already.
Where is he headed with all these seemingly matchless attributes of a man without blemish?
Where is he headed with this unprecedented mass preference for his style of politics?
More importantly, what if we are wrong about him?What if Obi is not entirely what he appears to be?What if, beneath the image we celebrate, there is another reality we have not seen?What if he is a Trojan horse, a Greek gift?
What if he is valiant, virtuous and admirable by day, but something entirely different by night? These are uncomfortable questions.Uncomfortable questions are not necessarily malicious questions. Such questions help to probe further into the lifestyle of a man already seen by majority of people as a Messiah.
Life has its different versions of us: the self we know and others know; the self we know but others do not; the self others know but we do not know; and, finally, the self neither we nor others know, only God knows.
What if there is a Peter Obi whom his supporters do not know, but whom his critics claim to see?
I have a few friends across my social-media platforms who seem to dislike Obi with every pint of blood in their veins. They interpret almost everything about him through a completely different lens. His supporters call it decency; they call it pretence. His supporters call it humility; they suspect strategy.
When he arrives late at an event and sits somewhere at the back, supporters may interpret it as modesty or a desire not to take centre stage. His critics may see deliberate theatre, a calculated way of creating the moment when the crowd eventually recognises him. Whether those interpretations are right or wrong is another matter.
But that is precisely the reason for this devil’ advocate role. The same action can be interpreted differently depending on the eyes through which it is seen. Therein lies the danger of political hero worship.
I am an ardent supporter of Peter Obi. I have written a book in his honour “Obi-Nometrics, Pulling Nigeria From the Deep”, two more manuscripts of him waiting to be published.
My admiration for him is therefore not in doubt. Perhaps that is exactly why I should occasionally put my admiration aside and play the devil’s advocate.Genuine support should not mean surrendering my critical mind too.
I would rather ask difficult questions about the man I support today than discover tomorrow that I was so emotionally invested in his image that I became incapable of seeing his imperfections.
What if the overwhelming love of the masses for Obi has muffled the tiny voices of those who question his credibility?What if his apparent decency, demeanour and carriage associated with him have become so convincing that they have blinded some supporters from examining the substance beneath the appearance of Mr Peter?
What if some of the allegations made against him, even those we instinctively dismiss, deserve to be examined rather than automatically rejected simply because we admire him?
Let me push the argument to an uncomfortable extreme.What if Peter Obi were a drug baron? Working with high powered cartels, nothing could make them devulge information.
What would that do to the psychological architecture of his massive support base?What if there were evidence of a Shylock-like side to him, an uncompromising, calculating dimension that his public persona conceals?
What if the man we celebrate for frugality and prudence were privately driven by something entirely different? What if the man we regard as morally exceptional were, in some areas of his private life, merely ordinary? These are hypothetical questions, not accusations.
That distinction matters.The purpose of asking them is not to manufacture evidence where none exists. It is to challenge the dangerous human tendency to turn admiration into worship
Politics has a cruel way of exposing the distance between who we think someone is and who that person actually is.Suppose Obi eventually becomes President.
What happens if the enormous expectations he has stirred in his die-hard supporters fall like a pack of cards?
What happens if he is confronted with the machinery of power and he becomes exactly what many Nigerians have become accustomed to seeing politicians do ?
What if morals, integrity, prudence, sacrifice and accountability that surround his political image become stained by the realities of office? What if power changes him?
Or, perhaps more frighteningly, what if power does not change him at all—but merely reveals what was already there , his supporters never knew? Can we apply the brakes for a moment?Can we sit with ourselves and interrogate this seemingly too-good-to-be-true disposition of Peter Obi?
Is this genuinely who he is? Is this his natural habitat? Is this his authentic character?Or is it possible that politics has become a theatre in which he has mastered the art of playing the role the audience desperately wants to see?Could he be playing to the gallery?Could the simplicity, restraint and moral posture be a carefully constructed political identity?
Or are these simply the authentic expressions of the man?
Could there be people under his footstool, crying for help, but their voices get soaked in the overwhelming love of his massive supporters, nobody cares to know what their cries are?
We do not know everything.Obi knows things about Peter that the public does not know.His supporters know the Peter Obi they have encountered. His critics equally know the Peter Obi they believe they have encountered. Who then have the complete package of Peter Obi?
No politician should become so sacred, questioning them becomes a sacrilege.
No matter how much we admire a man, we must leave room for scrutiny.No matter how decent a politician appears, we must leave room for verification.No matter how much the crowd chants his name, we must never allow the volume of the applause to drown the voice of reason.
I support Peter, however, supporting him should not require surrendering my capacity to question critically, if he is genuinely what many of us believe him to be.
Scrutiny should not destroy him; it should rather strengthen the credibility of such support. If someday, uncomfortable truths emerge, then our loyalty should be to truth, not to the mythology we constructed around a man. At the end of the day, the greatest danger is not discovering that our political hero has imperfections.The greater danger is becoming so emotionally attached to our heroes that we become incapable of recognising their faults however palpable . That is the reason I choose to play this devil’s advocate.
I would want to explore all the possible angle that would throw up things genuinely against him. I would want to prepare the minds of the massive supporters of him on the possible flip side of him we are not aware of .
The truth is, a hand without anything on it breaks nothing. The danger around this Obi hero worship,is the near perfection of his personality perception, anything dot of stain, which would be insignificant in relation to others is magnified, for them an Eagle with white feathers has no business with spots and stains. But is he still human or a Demi god?
What if Peter Obi is playing a script only him knows the plots? Just asking. The truth is, the pains from the betrayal of a known betrayer cannot be compared with the pains of a betrayal from a friend and loved one. This is the paradox of Obi’ clean personality optic.
Jarlath Uche Opara
jarlathuche@gmail.com