Peter Obi currently enjoys the momentum in the upcoming presidential election and public opinion highly favors him. You can hardly scroll through social media feeds without a mention of Peter Obi popping up. He is that popular. However momentum is one thing, translating it to electoral victory is another.
In my opinion, Peter Obi and the labor party are yet to hit the ground running. Of all the serious contenders for the presidency, the Labor party has the most work to do. 8 months to the general election may seem a distant time but for a party that is giving its first shot at the presidency, it is as close as it can get. It is even closer when you realize that they are contesting against parties who have played at this level for the past 2 decades.
Recently Peter Obi was asked how he intended to win the presidential elections when the Labor party had no structure. He replied that his structure was the 90 million Nigerians living under poverty, the 35 million out-of school children, the ASUU lecturers on strike, the university students at home etc. While it is good to whip up public sentiments prior to an election, it is high time Peter Obi and the Labor party got serious with the election.
The Labor party indeed does not have the structure to execute a presidential election. Prior to their emergence as Pat Utomi and co’s choice for launching their political third force movement, the labor party was a befuddled political party that served mainly as a last ditch option where aggrieved politicians who had lost the PDP or APC primaries came to try their luck. Since inception they have only produced two governors (Oshiomhole and Mimiko), who later defected.
To successfully execute a presidential election is serious business. The party needs to be present in the over 8000 political wards in the country. Each of the 774 local government areas must have a party leadership and grass-root membership. Membership registers must be up-to-date and lines of authority must be clear. That is what party structure means.
On election day, party members will be conscripted to serve as agents at the over 150 000 polling units in the country. How does the Labor party intend to achieve this? There is no Labor party in my village for instance, and my village is fairly sub-urban. What about Oporoma in Southern Ijaw (that is over an hour across the ocean) or the remotest villages in Zamfara and Yobe? Who will man Labor party’s votes in these places? The question we should be asking is how the Labor party intends to bridge this gap in such a short period of time.
And then there is the issue of campaign financing. I know that Peter Obi and his supporters have a mantra that says ‘we no dey give shi-shi’. While this is commendable, it shouldn’t be lost on them that presidential elections all over the world cost a fortune. And I’m not talking about bribes or voter inducements but real electioneering. Take advertisements for instance, when you factor in the cost of ads in national TV stations like Channels, international stations like CNN, front pages of national dailies, millions of posters, thousands of bill boards etc, you are easily talking of tens of billions of Naira already. Add that to securing the services of a seasoned campaign PR firm (which I highly suggest Obi should secure), you start to grasp how big the task ahead is.
The labor party should now focus on galvanizing this wave of support that Obi currently enjoys into something more structured. It is party structure that wins elections in Nigeria. There must be a clear plan on how to execute the election. Obi has the name, what is left is the structure (and the money). His fame needs to be properly managed or it will all lie to waste; an effort in futility.