The imperative for a new Nigeria: Where to for the Obidient Movement?

The desire for a new Nigeria is not a quixotic quest, it is an imperative. From the #EndSARS protest of 2020 to the emergence of the Obidient Movement, there is a growing determination, driven mostly by young people, for a new Nigeria.

The strength of the movement is that it recognises that people live in an unjust, oppressive and unsustainable country. This context gave the movement its appeal and propelled it to achieve remarkable success in the 2023 elections. The immediate opportunity for the movement now is to define a clear ideological base if it is to successfully shift from the stance of resisting the unjust system to addressing the enormous problems facing Nigeria and the African continent. 

The Obidient Movement can be interpreted both narrowly and broadly. In the narrow sense, it refers to supporters of Peter Obi, who came third in the 25 February 2023 election. This poll was characterised by electoral violence, voter intimidation and suppression, and “the electoral commission’s failure to collate ballots transparently”, according to an International Crisis Group report.

Obi’s appeal has been his reputation for upholding the rule of law, appearing incorruptible, promoting development and demonstrating financial discipline. The youth in particular, embraced him and amplified his message through social media. 

In the broader sense, the movement represents the collective hopes and aspirations of millions of Nigerians, regardless of age or location, who long for a just, equitable and economically free country that works for everyone. It is important to note that some people may support the movement’s broad vision without necessarily endorsing Obi. Similarly, some people might support him for selfish interests without any meaningful commitment to the renewal of the country. 

But the Obidient Movement lacks a unified and inspiring narrative of the future it seeks to create. This is a significant gap. While fragments of such narratives exist, they often contradict or dilute one another. Some narratives paint a picture of a welfare state, while others lean towards a neoliberalist state that encourages privatisation and increased production. Neither of these visions is compelling or desirable, presenting an opportunity for the movement to imagine a new and innovative future that is truly inspiring and shared by the people.

At its best, the movement in its current form will only go as far as assimilating a few people into a system and making the middle class. Such a gradualist and incremental approach of neoliberalism will not successfully absorb the 133 million people (63% of people living in Nigeria) who are multidimensionally poor. 

While the movement was borne out of the desperate feeling that the future is unsustainable, it will require so much more to transform it from a resistance movement of the old order to a proactive one of building systems and institutions that work for all people. To energise and sustain the movement, a progressive, Pan-Africanist, anti-colonial, anti-militarised ideology that offers a compelling radical vision of a just and equitable society is needed. 

Be truly radical 

Nigeria lacks a positive political ideology. We are so focused on survival amid the economic hardships and insecurity that there is no clear imagination of the ultimate political and social life we want to live as a nation. Because of this lack of a positive ideology, other unhelpful ideologies are allowed to circulate uninterrupted. 

There is no way that the neoliberal ideology of the West and its attendant policies will move Nigeria out of the present quagmires of poverty, inequality, unemployment and oppression, and forge an equitable society. The neo-colonial economic policies of the present government maintain continuity with previous administrations in things like the way in which the fuel subsidy was removed, the deregulation of the naira and the appeal for foreign investment.  

The government of President Bola Tinubu is uncritical of Western imperialism. In fact, it would be difficult to refute accusations that the president is an Uncle Tom, with his decision to revert to the colonial anthem being one example. Many have objected that it is wrong to abandon an anthem composed by a group of Nigerians for one written by a British journalist who used harmful and denigrative words such as “tribe” and “native land”. 

Supporters of the new anthem point to the lines in the first stanza, “Though tribe and tongue may differ, In brotherhood, we stand” as a rallying call for the country’s unity and that this and the anthem as a whole would be effective in unifying a diverse country. This could not be further from the truth, and the issue is much deeper than that. The Nigerian Senate president unashamedly suggested that the re-introduced anthem is capable of solving the country’s security problems by asserting: “If we had kept to that anthem, we probably would not have banditry today in Nigeria because if you take your neighbour as your brother, you will not want to kill him.”

Construing this anthem as an ideological recitation that is hoped to etch in the people’s memory, the anthem reinforces the idea of “tribe” that feeds into a colonial mentality that fragments the population of our country and the continent. This, to me, is a bigger problem than the worry by many that the anthem has come at a time of escalating economic crisis. 

Highlighting the varying “tribes” and “tongues” obscures our Blackness (in the political sense), which should unify us beyond national boundaries to resist without apology all systems of oppression. Until we see ourselves as united Black people fighting against an oppressive system and its acolytes — regardless of their colour, language, culture or “tribes” — which primarily benefits the West and the few surrogates imposed on us as leaders, we will not achieve freedom. 

The fact of our Blackness should concern us — this is what will break the bounds of tribalism, the uncritical embrace of religion, sexism and classism. The Marikana Massacre of 2012 in South Africa, the #EndSARS ​​​​massacre in Nigeria in 2020 and the recent killings of young people in Kenya by security forces who were protesting against the finance bill are all underlined by neo-colonial impulses and forces that continue to oppress Black people beyond national boundaries. Our liberation hinges on a unified response to the multitude of oppression we face in different parts of the world. 

Breaking free from the cauldron of repressed memories of colonisation, the civil war, state militarisation, state-sanctioned violence, non-state actors’ impunities, ethnic divisions, patriarchy, nationalism and classism requires a radical politics. Instead, the politics in Nigeria and many parts of the continent is replete with an uncritical embrace of strong-man politics. This is regressive.  

The current Nigerian administration shows all the trappings of this regressive, strong-man politics in a fascistic way. This attitude has been expressed in the way laws are passed, in the constant praise of the leaders, in the buffoonery of many elected offices who are in constant praise of Tinubu by singing “On your mandate we shall stand” even during official parliamentary sittings, and in the recent unveiling of a large portrait of the president on Democracy Day. Furthermore, Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, recently asked permanent secretaries “to leave their seats and bow before Tinubu as a show of appreciation for their appointments”. It should not surprise anyone that we are on the path of forcing an alliance to the state, first through the new national anthem to forcing an alliance to an individual who might want to stay in power indefinitely. This should worry us. 

The Obidient Movement misses this fact; it takes a survivalist and nationalistic view of liberation. This is limiting. Our struggle as a nation is bound up in the struggle of every Black nation and people around the world. This fact requires a recognition that our solutions will only come from us, not the West. We need to organise as one people in defiance of the established order. 

Against deference 

In many African cultures, respect for elders is seen as sacrosanct. This idea is harmful to any meaningful fight against oppression. Even resisting oppression and standing up for one’s truth is seen as disrespectful. Politicians, teachers, parents and clergies exploit this to stifle any resistance. Those who spoke up against and recounted the woes of the election that was marred by systemic failings, voter suppression, gross ineptitude, and death and injury to many are seen as disrespectful, enemies of the state and “radicals”. Many who have made statements of verifiable facts have been attacked. Chimamanda Adichie’s Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy and Falz and Vector’s Yakubu were prominent examples. 

Our culture of deference for authority figures allows injustice and oppression to go unchallenged in most cases. We have a duty to resist oppression, challenge unaccountable power and call out corrupt and self-serving leaders.  Social media reveals the perfidiousness of many unashamed politicians, academics, and pastorpreneur who continue to plunge the country into pervasive and enduring ridiculousness yet still feel entitled to be respected and not called out for the harm they do.  The lack of a critical tradition has produced two extremes that have constricted the space for critical and robust engagement. One is the obsessive need to be polite and look up to a figurehead in our struggle for liberation. The other is for those with power to view all dissents and disagreements as that which should be violently squashed. 

There are many instances of the latter. Some examples include parents who deny their wards the space to articulate what matters to them, university professors who punish their students for disagreeing with them on intellectual matters or pointing out their mistakes, businessmen who cannot take a review from customers and want to jail them, and politicians who jail and imprison journalists and those who dissent. 

On the former, as it pertains to our need for a figurehead; the culture of deference inhibits our political liberation and handicaps the radical vision. One could argue that Peter Obi, whom the Obidient Movement used as a channel for their political aspirations, negatively affected the revolutionary energy that was brewing through the #EndSARS protest, which was led by the oppressed people themselves. 

The liberation of Nigeria from its unjust system cannot be entrusted to the implicated elites; it must be led and sustained by the common person who has a meaningful stake in their liberation, as it unfolded in Kenya.  In other words, we cannot trust the Nigerian elites to lead the fight against oppression; they have their relative privileges to defend. Our elite fail to understand that it is in their enlightened self-interest to stand with the most vulnerable of our societies. A failing country with restricted rights and freedoms does not discriminate; sooner or later, everyone will have their share of its woes. 

Religious leaders in Nigeria have a unique responsibility in the fight against oppression given that “Africans are notoriously religious“, as Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti remarks. They must uphold the principle of the preferential option for the poor and the vulnerable by actively standing with and supporting the marginalised in their struggle for liberation. But the oppressed must lead their liberation and not wait for permission from those who are bedfellows with those who oppress them.

In an oppressive context like Nigeria, simply retelling unjust events is a radical act of breaking the veil of silence that sustains oppression. Sharing our pains is a revolutionary act that the Nigerian intelligentsia won’t do. There is a serious conversation worth having about the almost total capture of the Nigerian University by the ruling elites. The Nigerian professoriate and intelligentsia are acolytes to the oppressive elites and provide the veneer of credibility to illogical and obtuse practices. We see many of them in the online world.  

In significant ways, Nigerian women have played a vital role in countering and resisting narratives that obscure our oppression and absolve politicians of accountability. It has been inspiring to see women such as Aisha Yesufu, Rinu Oduala and countless others at the forefront of the Obidient Movement. This must be encouraged, and more effort must be made to widen the participation of other marginalised groups. Accepting differences of all kinds — ethnic, religious and sexual — must be central to meaningful liberatory politics that espouses the tenets of equality, justice, freedom, and prosperity for all people. 

We cannot make progress as a nation, as Black people, if we do not appreciate differences of all kinds, the patriotism of criticism and the diversity of thoughts. Any radical politics must allow for intellectual robustness and room for the Obidient Movement to critique itself. Progress is whatever area of life is made through contesting ideas and “disobedience” to taken-for-granted norms.  

Political education is essential 

There is a vexed relationship between liberation and people’s complicity in their oppression. It is often the marginalised who are quick to defend an unjust system. It has been common to see abhorring scenes of marginalised and disenfranchised people fighting to keep the system by pursuing narrow interests of ethnicity, religion and greed. 

This attitude is not surprising. Nigeria lacks a broad-based critical education that is political and revolutionary. This gap offers an opportunity for conscientisation, to use Paulo Freire’s term, which had resonance in the work of Julius Nyerere, Amílcar Cabral and Steve Biko. 

Grassroots political education is integral to bridging the gap between the now and the future we want and creating leaders at all levels of society with the required awareness and consciousness to drive social and political change. Black radical politics should take up an interstitial space between a corrupt present and the future that is inevitably emerging through robust political education. 

This “education” must go beyond textual reference to substantively inclusive engagement with dance, songs, spoken words and other mediums through online and offline platforms. Education must lead people to recognise that an election is a moment in democracy and that democracy is to be lived every day through active participation in society’s affairs. It must show the thread that the oppression that Black people face around the world is at the root, informed by structures and systems that are designed to keep us in a state of perpetual disadvantage and angst. 

Without a shared understanding of the injustices being resisted through a critical engagement with our history as a people, the movement cannot gather the force necessary for sustained action. It cannot move from the sensationalism of a figurehead to a sustained force for the good of society. This shared understanding must include the immediate goal of replacing corrupt politicians with competent leaders who identify and show solidarity with the people. It must also be accompanied by a larger aim: the subversion of neo-colonialism, liberal imperialism, capitalism and the ongoing exploitation of Africa. Additionally, a positive, compelling and uplifting vision of the future is needed to inspire and motivate all individuals to take action towards its realisation. 

In conclusion, I treat the sketchiness of my view as a virtue. The virtue lies in the room for expansion by inviting other voices into this conversation since the borders of what I outline here are still forming and have not yet solidified. My hope is that there is an ongoing interrogation of the ideas and ideals we hope for in the new Nigeria without losing sight of practical everyday matters.

The true liberation the Obidient Movement seeks cannot be achieved by mere reactive resistance to injustice and illegality. It requires a firm grounding in a robust, African-centred liberatory political ideology in theory and praxis. This proactive approach will take the movement beyond resistance towards a vision of creating a just future for all. This is the radical call. 

Akanimo Andrew Akpan is a senior consultant at Reos Partners. He is a member of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg. The views expressed here are his and do not reflect those of any of his associations.