By Tai Emeka Obasi.
The same group of the old order, who mock that the OBI-DATTI Movement is only about social media noise without structures, are still the same clique that employ thousands to besiege the social media, just to displace the reigning champion of social media dominance, HE Peter Obi, his running mate, Sen Datti Baba-Ahmed and the Labour Party, LP. In the name of Fact-checking, their brief is clear – come up with wrong statistics, quote any credible (or sounds credible) source to attack any data Peter Obi presents, call him a liar while doing so. Their purpose – the need to stop believing and subsequently stop listening to him. He’s causing a lot of havoc to our chances! Don’t worry. Nigerians are too lazy to cross-check your sources. Even if they do, at worst you will create confusion on which statistical figures to believe henceforth.
Funnily, same Fact-checkers were thoughtlessly applauding their paymaster when he promised to employ 50 million Nigerian youths into the military. They didn’t fact-check to tell him that was a quarter(25%) of Nigeria’s entire population. Neither did they fact-check to whisper to him that China with a population of over 1.4 billion people (seven times Nigeria’s population) has the largest military in the world made up of about two million personnel (about 0.14% of China’s population). They did not do that. Of course, the Jagaban has a right to any slip of the tongue or even entirely forget whatever he was priory tutored to say. Like he once forgot the name of his party in a public address! We’re on the new trend of supposed retirees and, as it were, incapacitated men leading a country of over 200 million people.
But they failed to understand that Nigerians have heard enough of the LP Presidential Candidate to completely believe in his honest appraisal of the myriad of problems bedeviling their country. They have seen a man of proven integrity, an evident patriot determined to live to his words of being desperate to see a working Nigeria. They understand that a man that speaks extempore has every right to a slip of the tongue in occasional circumstances, otherwise he has become God. In comparison, the Jagaban can’t speak extempore. He will only remember agbado, cassava and ewa. His hands cannot hold steady a written document of prepared speech either. Interesting days are ahead. Nobody is trying to mock an elder but when you’re old enough to retire, you quit the stage honourably.
If they witnessed what happened in Nasarawa and Kaduna States last Saturday, they would have come to the realisation that for every lie they raise against the Obi-Datti Movement, God raises extra supporters in multiple folds. HE Adams Oshiomhole might have regretted ever spewing that OBIdients are a group of four people writing from one room if the former Labour Union President still retains any iota of reasonable apprehension.
The man we also call Okwute is waiting for the campaign to officially open. You will see him discuss his manifesto with characteristic statistical data analysis. And so will his running mate. Imagine a podium of Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed, speaking one after the other to any audience. The Fact-checkers ain’t seen nothing yet. They’re fighting a lost cause. Nigeria is long taken by her rightful owners – the Youths and the Obi-Datti Movement.
