Commentaries on Governor Monday Okpebholo’s remarks over Peter Obi’s visit to Edo State are dropping thick and fast, but much of the reactions traffics in insult at the governor. And a good deal of the pro-Obi commentaries is actually thuggery. I think the insults and name-calling amount to gross disrespect to the people of Edo State whom Governor Okpebholo lawfully represents. None of those hauling the bricks has a right to dictate to the people of Edo State who their leader should be.
Consumed by emotions and blinded by partisan affiliation, the pro-Obi commentators have largely stepped over the issues at play which the governor clearly addressed in his initial comment on the matter. The real issues implicated in the face-off between Okpebholo and Obi are important and deserve to be isolated and looked at in their merit, devoid of political colouration.
Governor Okpebholo had called out Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, and former governor of Anambra State, for visiting Edo State, obviously for a political act, without informing the governor of the state.
The reaction of Governor Okpebholo was that the action of the former governor of Anambra State was irregular and in fragrant breach of security protocols and courtesies that ought to attend a visit by such a high-profile political figure. The governor’s extended position on the matter was that next time Obi wants to visit Edo state, he should inform the Edo State governor, and if he doesn’t, he should not visit the state.
It’s plain common sense and consistent with established global practices that a former presidential candidate of a major political party, or any political bigwig for that matter, will do well not only by informing the governor of a state he’s visiting, in fact, by paying a courtesy call on the governor on the way to the purpose of his visit. That’s the way to show respect to constituted authority. That’s the way to show humility which Obi wants people to see as his second skin.
While such a former presidential candidate sneaks into any state for a visit of any kind, his safety is the responsibility of the sitting governor. Should anything untoward happen to him, who takes the rap? The sitting governor, of course!
Do we now see why Governor Okpebholo should take umbrage at such irregular VIP behaviour? Whoever is interested in what is right will say without hesitation that Senator Okpebholo said the right thing about Peter Obi’s disdainful behaviour. The former presidential candidate of the Labour Party should not sneak into any state given his profile. He should show he is ready to be President through proper comportment.
Those leading the frenzied criticism of the Edo State governor seem to suffer from selective amnesia. They want to give the impression that they have forgotten so soon what Obi did when el Rufai went to Anambra State at the time Obi was governor. Did Obi himself not bare his fangs at el Rufai during that visit in 2013, citing security concerns for restricting el Rufai’s movement while he was in the state?
To buttress the verity of Okpebholo’s position on VIP visit, Mr Nyesom Wike, FCT minister and former governor of Rivers State, recalled at a recent public event in Edo State that when he was governor of Rivers State, Peter Obi informed him as the state governor, of his (Obi’s) plan to visit the state and the Rivers State government made available to him the necessary logistics and security support during the visit. Wike explained that such notification and concomitant support was necessary to ensure the safety and comfort of the visiting VIP, to make sure that nothing went amiss during such a visit for which anyone could blame the governor of the state.
What Obi did in Edo State smacks of gross disrespect to the person and office of the governor of Edo State. My belief is that Obi should respect sitting governors the way he was respected when he was governor by conducting himself within the norms of our socio-political culture and the imperatives of security. Security protocols should not be treated with levity, because things could go disastrously wrong within a moment of thoughtlessness or levity with the safety of a ranking politician such as a former presidential candidate.
This matter is as much about security as it is about protocol. Someone once said there would have been no government if there was no protocol. So the right protocol is important to avoid creating a faux pas for a VIP in the public space.
I know some people would say that these issues of security protocols and VIP courtesies are not important because they want to keep on caressing the plastic image of Obi as a simple and humble politician, though this simple politician flew in a chopper to the burial of his sister-in-law and was in love of traveling by private jets when he was governor.
The truth is that Obi’s canned humility is a mask for a standoffish disposition that has leaked through the façade from time to time. His apparent disdain for Governor Okpebholo may be the latest of such Freudian slips, but there have been many instances of such seepage in the past. For another instance, the story is abroad that Obi did not bother to inform major stakeholders and political heavyweights within Ndigbo of his plan to run for President in 2023. Obi is a story of make-believe simplicity masking a snobbish streak that has lamentably led so many, particularly Nigerian youths, into mistaking the tawdry for the real!
The mix-up of the tawdry and the real, spawned by the grotesquely cultivated public persona of Peter Obi, is ever noticed in his actions and speeches wherever he goes. He is either seen serving meals at events, wheeling his luggage through airports, or talking of how he will fly commercial planes in his coming and going if he becomes president. Yet none of his fawning followers appears to have told him that this type of talk and conduct is gnawing away at his credibility. Governance is not even a humility contest.
A leader can be humble and yet ineffective. Obi should preen himself less on humility and simplicity, and tell us what he had done remarkably differently in governance at the subnational stage that he wants to replicate at the national level.
That Anambra State is in such a sorry security state today does not suggest that Peter Obi came away with a sterling scorecard on that state. Bad governance and insecurity are like Siamese twins.
No one should be misled by Nigeria’s social media infatuation with the Obi bubble to mistake bad form for standard behaviour. Mr Peter Obi was wrong to sneak into Edo State. He is bound by the demands of security and protocol—generally by social expectations—to inform the sitting governor of the state he is visiting. Governor Monday Okpebholo was right and within his obligation as the chief security officer of Edo State to hold Obi’s feet to fire for an inappropriate behaviour. Obi appears to be as unmindful of diplomacy as he is notoriously careless with facts.
Otongaran, a communication artist, writes from Abuja.