In order to avoid a repeat of Buhari, critical citizens should ask Obi hard, soul-searching questions because he could be president.
For example, why did he allow the Anambra State University branch of ASUU to go on strike for more than six months and even go so far as to sack the school’s vice chancellor “because of his alleged romance with the striking workers of the university,” according to the Daily Sun of January 19, 2011? How is he different from Buhari in this regard?
Why did he allow doctors in Anambra State to go on strike for 13 months, which led to many needless deaths? The doctors called off their strike without Obi meeting their demands. And he implemented the no-work-no-pay rule when Anambra civil servants went on strike to demand to be paid minimum wage.
While he was governor of Anambra, he played typical Nigerian politics of divide and rule. He played Catholics against Anglicans and even stigmatised political opponents as “Yoruba” people, according to Professor Okey Ndibe who wrote extensively on him.
“It is similarly appalling that a governor who reportedly has ambitions for higher political office could not restrain himself from disparaging Mr Ngige as a Yoruba candidate,” Ndibe wrote in his April 18, 2011, column titled “Peter Obi, Akunyili and Political Folly.” “Even if we accepted the silly argument that the ACN was a Yoruba party – so what? Is the governor allergic to forging political alliances with the Yoruba? Is he not aware that such appeals to base, ethnic sentiments would return to haunt him if he ever seeks to be a political player at the national level?”
That was prophetic. This doesn’t make Obi any worse than his opponents. But because he could be president, we should interrogate him so we won’t be blindsided.
•Farooq Adamu Kperogi is a Nigerian-American professor, author, media scholar, newspaper columnist, blogger and activist. He was a reporter and news editor at many Nigerian newspapers.