The Man Who Lost The Mandate: How Peter Obi Squandered A Generational Moment – By Olabode Opeseitan

• What it means for the future of the South East

I. THE RISE

By the time the sun rose on February 26, 2023, Peter Obi had become a parable. Not merely a candidate, not merely a man, but a vessel: of hope, of grievance, of generational yearning.

In the eyes of millions of young Nigerians, he was the anti-politician: frugal, unbought, unbowed. He spoke in the clipped cadence of a technocrat, wielded spreadsheets like scripture, and promised to “move Nigeria from consumption to production.” In a country where politics often feels like a theater of betrayal, Obi’s ascension felt like a rupture in the script.

He won over six million votes, more than any third-party candidate in Nigeria’s history. He carried Lagos, the commercial capital. He swept the South East. He electrified the diaspora. And then, like a comet that burns too brightly, he began to fall.

The unraveling was not sudden. It was a slow, almost imperceptible erosion, like the sea eating away at a cliffside. First came the tape: a leaked audio recording in which Obi, in a hushed appeal to Bishop David Oyedepo, framed the 2023 election as a “religious war.” “Daddy, this is a religious war,” he said, urging Oyedepo to rally Christian voters in the Southwest and North Central. The man who once promised to unite Nigeria had, in a single phrase, fractured his claim to moral neutrality.

Then came the silence. When South East governors demolished illegal structures in Enugu and Imo, Obi said nothing. But when the Lagos State government undertook similar demolitions in Alaba market, Obi condemned the move as “insensitive,” implying ethnic targeting. The double standard was not lost on observers. For a man who once styled himself as a national healer, the selectivity of his outrage revealed not principle, but bigotry.

By 2024, the defections began. Kenneth Okonkwo, the Nollywood actor turned campaign spokesman, walked away, citing Obi’s failure to resolve Labour Party’s internal implosion. “I have lost confidence that PO has what it takes to build a party that can win,” he wrote. “I cannot continue to project a person who cannot sustain the victory even if he wins.”

Then came Morris Monye, the Director of Mobilization for the Obidient Movement. In November 2025, he resigned with a blistering statement: “I won’t be part of optics and no work,” he declared. “No funding was provided for the Directorate of Mobilization. We don’t even have a functional bank account. Mr Obi has never once enquired about our mobilisation efforts. There’s been no communication whatsoever.” He revealed he had spent ₦40 million of his own money, endured political harassment, and watched the movement’s goals wither. “This isn’t 2023 anymore. The novelty has worn off,” he warned.

What happened to Peter Obi? How did a man who once embodied the aspirations of a restless generation become a symbol of squandered momentum? And what does his fall mean for the political future of the South East, indeed, for Nigeria itself?

This is the story of a man who mistook moral capital for political infrastructure. A story of how charisma, unmoored from strategy, can become a liability. A story of how a movement built on hope can collapse under the weight of its own mythology.

II. THE FRACTURE

Peter Obi’s political persona was built on a singular premise: that he was different. In a country where public office is often a synonym for plunder, Obi styled himself as the monk in the marketplace, a man who governed Anambra State with the restraint of a Benedictine abbot. He claimed to have left billions in state coffers, refused to draw a pension, and famously carried his own bags through airports. “Go and verify,” he would say, a refrain that became both mantra and dare.

But verification, it turns out, is a double-edged sword.

According to the Debt Management Office, Anambra State under Obi’s watch was not debt-free. As of December 2013, three months before he left office, the state owed over ₦3 billion in domestic debt and $30 million in external obligations.

More troubling were allegations that a significant portion of the state’s savings, some $20 million, had been deposited in Fidelity Bank, where Obi had previously served as chairman and reportedly retained a financial interest. Critics pointed to a potential conflict of interest, arguing that the placement of public funds in a bank with personal ties raised ethical red flags. Obi, for his part, defended the move as a prudent financial decision made in the interest of the state, citing favorable terms offered by the bank. While no court has ruled on the matter, the optics alone were damaging. For a man who built his brand on transparency and prudence, the perception of self-dealing cast a long shadow.

His successor, Governor Willie Obiano, publicly disputed Obi’s claim of leaving ₦75 billion in state coffers. Obiano’s administration insisted that what it actually inherited was ₦9 billion in cash, ₦26 billion in “near cash,” and over ₦185 billion in contract liabilities. The Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Solo Chukwulobelu, dismissed Obi’s claims as “half-truths,” accusing him of painting a rosy picture of assets while omitting the liabilities he incurred.

The Labour Party, once a vessel for Obidient energy, descended into factional warfare. Court cases multiplied. Parallel conventions were held. At one point, the party had two chairmen, two secretariats, and zero coherence. Obi, ever the minimalist, refused to intervene. Even as the party fractured beneath him, he maintained a studied distance, insisting he remained in the Labour Party, even while aligning with a coalition that had adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as its platform.

Ever prone to flight when faced with the burden of internal reform, Obi has now abandoned the Labour Party for the ADC, further alienating a base already disillusioned by his evasions. To many, the defection confirms a deeper fear, that they are dealing with a leader more inclined to chase short-term political lifelines than to invest in the long, patient work of building a durable coalition. One capable not only of contesting power, but of doing so without inflaming sectarian fault lines or manipulating the hopes of a weary people.

The Obidient Movement, once a digital juggernaut, began to splinter. WhatsApp groups fell silent. Twitter spaces turned into echo chambers of recrimination. The movement that had once marched in lockstep now limped in confusion.

III. THE RECKONING

In 2016, the Panama Papers exposed the offshore holdings of presidents, oligarchs, celebrities, and tycoons. Among the names was Peter Obi.

Legally, Obi broke no Nigerian law. He did what many wealthy individuals do: he set up a shell company in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction known for secrecy and zero tax obligations. But legality is not the same as integrity. And for a man who built his political brand on transparency, the optics were devastating.

The revelation didn’t just raise questions about his personal finances, it raised a moral dilemma for the very movement he led. If every Nigerian elite followed Obi’s example and stashed their wealth offshore, what would remain of the nation’s tax base? Who would fund the roads, the schools, the hospitals? Offshore finance may be legal, but it is also parasitic: it extracts value from the state while contributing nothing to its upkeep. For a man who promised to “build a new Nigeria,” the contradiction was glaring.

Obi’s post-election rhetoric only deepened the fracture. In one interview, he declared that “any Nigerian who claims to be happy is an animal,” a statement that, while metaphorical, struck many as contemptuous. He echoed Donald Trump’s description of Nigeria as a “disgraced country,” saying, “How can we dispute it?” The line felt less like critique and more like surrender.

But the most damaging moment remained the leaked phone call with Bishop David Oyedepo. The tape, verified by multiple outlets, revealed a man willing to stoke sectarian fears to win votes. For a candidate who had once promised to rise above Nigeria’s fault lines, it was a betrayal of the highest order.

The backlash was swift. Northern Muslim leaders denounced the rhetoric. Christian moderates recoiled. Even some of Obi’s most ardent supporters began to question whether the man they had followed was the man they thought he was.

Among the most incisive critiques came from human rights lawyer and activist Dele Farotimi, who had once defended Obi publicly. In a December 2025 interview, Farotimi warned that Obi’s political model, rooted in populist rhetoric and moral symbolism, was no longer sufficient in a country grappling with complex, structural challenges. “Peter Obi must change his ways,” he said, or risk becoming irrelevant. Nigeria, he argued, had evolved. The electorate was more discerning. The old playbook, moral posturing without institutional groundwork, was no longer enough.

Farotimi’s words captured a growing sentiment: that Obi’s refusal to adapt, to build coalitions, to articulate a coherent ideological vision, was not just a tactical error. It was a fatal one.

IV. THE FALLOUT

Even before the election, seasoned political actors had sounded the alarm. In a televised interview on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout, then-Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai dismissed Obi’s chances outright: “Peter Obi is a Nollywood actor and that’s all he will be. He doesn’t have 25% in more than 16 states. He can’t go anywhere.”

El-Rufai’s critique wasn’t just personal, it was constitutional. Nigeria’s electoral law requires a presidential candidate to secure at least 25% of the vote in 24 states to win. In the final tally, Peter Obi polled over 25% in just 17 states (including the FCT), falling seven states short of the constitutional threshold. Despite winning 12 states and the FCT, his support was regionally concentrated in the South East, parts of the South-South, and a few urban centers like Lagos and Abuja. In the North West and North East, regions with the highest voter populations, Obi’s performance was dismal, often polling below 5%.

The implication was stark: Obi’s campaign, for all its fervor, lacked the national spread to be taken seriously as a presidential bid. El-Rufai’s “Nollywood actor” jab may have been caustic, but it captured a deeper truth, that Obi’s candidacy was more performance than platform, more spectacle than structure.

This critique, once dismissed as partisan bluster, now reads like prophecy. The numbers bore it out. The defections confirmed it. And the strategic recalibration now underway in the South East is a tacit admission that El-Rufai, for all his provocation, had read the map correctly.

V. THE FUTURE

Not everyone agrees that Peter Obi’s political story is over. Some of his supporters argue that it is premature to write Obi’s political obituary. They believe that, as in 2023, he could still defy the odds and re-emerge as a disruptive force. They point to his name recognition, his loyal base, and the unpredictability of Nigerian politics as reasons to keep him in the conversation.

But even among sympathizers, there is growing recognition that the old playbook no longer works. Moral symbolism, outsider rhetoric, and digital fervor are no longer enough. The political terrain has shifted. Coalitions are hardening. Trust is thinning. The man who once rode a wave of hope now faces a tide of insurmountable skepticism.

Simply put, Obi’s model is outdated, even if his name still lingers.

And yet, the vacuum he leaves behind is not without movement. In the shadows of his unraveling, a new generation of Eastern leaders is recalibrating the region’s political compass, not toward protest, but toward power.

Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State has formally decamped to the APC. Governor Alex Otti of Abia, though elected under the Labour Party, has maintained a cordial and cooperative relationship with the Tinubu administration. In Anambra, Governor Charles Soludo, an economist with a technocrat’s temperament, has publicly endorsed President Tinubu’s second-term bid.

This quiet realignment is not accidental. It is strategic.

For the first time in years, the South East is beginning to secure seats at the table where decisions are made, not just in public forums, but in the inner sanctums of national deliberation. The logic is simple: proximity to power is not betrayal; it is leverage. And in a country where political capital is often distributed through proximity, the South East’s new posture may prove more consequential than decades of inflexible distance.

If this trajectory holds, the region could be well-positioned in 2031 to claim one of the top three positions in the land: Vice President, or Senate President. More importantly, it could place the South East in pole position for when power is expected to return to the South. But this will require discipline, unity, and a willingness to trade moral absolutism for strategic patience.

In this context, Peter Obi’s continued prominence is not just a distraction for the South East, it is a distortion. His polarizing rhetoric, his fractured coalition, and his alienation of key national blocs threaten to derail the very gains the region is beginning to make. The question is no longer whether Obi can win. It is whether his presence on any ticket will cost the South East its best shot at national relevance in a generation.

The future, then, belongs not to the loudest voice, but to the quietest calculation. And in the corridors of power, the South East may have decided to whisper where it once shouted.

EPILOGUE: The Echo and the Exit

Peter Obi once stood at the intersection of hope and history. Now, he stands at the edge of irrelevance, not only because he lost an election, but because he lost the plot. The movement that saw him as an inspiration has scattered. The myth he embodied has unraveled. And the region he claimed to champion is quietly rewriting its strategy without him.

In the end, Obi’s story is not just about a man who fell short. It is about a moment that demanded more than moral grandstanding. It demanded structure, coalition, and the discipline to build what outlasts charisma.

That moment has passed. The mandate is gone. And the whisper of what might have been is all that remains.

Olabode Opeseitan; Editorial Architect | Legacy Steward | Strategic Communicator.