It has been said that a person’s worst enemy is the individual who feeds their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The 2023 election is over. Peter Obi defeated us, not Bola Tinubu. By contesting in an election he knew he could not win, Peter Obi stole away votes that would naturally have come to the Peoples Democratic Party (the Southeast has always voted PDP since 1999. Only 2023 was an exception). That is why we lost.
As a true friend of the Peoples Democratic Party, I told Peter Obi this before the election. I also said the same thing to Waziri Atiku Abubakar. I said if we did not find a way to convince Peter Obi not to run, then we would have to take him on head-on because there was not enough space for both him and Waziri Atiku on the plinth of victory. But that is now history.
The fact of the matter is that the current trajectory of our party is very and eerily similar to the election denial that prevailed in the Republican Party after the 2020 election.
Pinning all our hopes on a smoking gun from Chicago State University that failed to manifest shows that we have reached the end of our ropes.
Let us face the truth. AriseTV and other irresponsible media got our hopes up unnecessarily. Chicago State University never denied Bola Tinubu. That was a big fat lie from Rufai Oseni, @ruffydfire, a corrupt journalist sponsored by Peter Obi, a rival of Mr. Tinubu.
A meticulous reading of Mr. Westberg’s deposition shows that he affirmed Mr. Tinubu three times as a bonafide graduate they once issued with a diploma certificate.
Under normal circumstances, it would be apparent to us that there is no case here. Chicago State University, through its registrar, Mr. Caleb Westberg, has testified under oath that Bola Tinubu, the male now President of Nigeria, was admitted, attended and graduated from their institution.
They never denied his credentials. What they said, both in their affidavit and the deposition that followed is that they could not attest to the diploma tendered by Bola Tinubu to the Independent National Electoral Commission, not because Bola Tinubu did not graduate from their university, but because a third party vendor issued it, and certificates are more of “a Nigerian thing”.
In case members of my party do not know, in November of 2022, this same Mr. Mike Enahoro-Ebah attempted to disqualify Mr. Tinubu on exactly these same grounds, and an FCT Magistrate Court struck out his case without being assigned. And we think the Supreme Court will give credence to what a Magistrate Court dismissed?
What do we now want to prove at the Supreme Court, even in the unlikely event we are allowed to present new evidence? That Bola Tinubu forged a diploma for a degree that he legitimately earned? If not for desperation, why would the great PDP that produced Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan even consider clutching at such weak straws? It is like saying a man forged a cheque for an account in his name!
Bola Tinubu’s political foes have clutched at this straw before in 1999 and 2003 and failed. And that is what we now want to hold onto in 2023? Twenty years after it failed?
The people behind this desperation are almost all agents of Peter Obi. They don’t love Waziri Atiku Abubakar or the PDP. It is a strategy of using Waziri to fight Asiwaju, hoping they cancel each other and that a rerun election is ordered, which Peter Obi will win. They fail to consider that as of today, that is yes daddily impossible.
Waziri Atiku Abubakar would have been a better President than Bola Tinubu. But we were outsmarted by Bola Tinubu. Our redemption will not come from Chicago. It will come from facing reality and ensuring we do not have a divided house in 2027.
I have been more loyal to the PDP than those now trying to make something out of nothing. And if I cannot tell my party the truth, then to borrow the words of Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19, I am of all men most miserable!
*Omokri is a former presidential aide