by Mohammed Bello Doka
3 May, 2026
Let us begin with a confession that will make your fingers tremble. The South East has never been closer to the presidency than it was in the last two election cycles. Not through the front door of a solo run, but through the side door of the vice presidency. Twice, under Muhammadu Buhari, an Igbo man was offered the ticket to sit one heartbeat away from the nation’s number one seat. Twice, the South East looked at that offer and spat on it. Not because the Igbo vice presidential candidate was unqualified. Not because Buhari was a saint. But because the Obidient spirit, long before it had a name, convinced Ndigbo that the vice presidency was a consolation prize for slaves. And so they refused to vote for Buhari in the numbers required. They stayed home. They protested. They demanded the presidency or nothing. And what did they get? Nothing. For eight years. Zero. Not the presidency. Not the vice presidency. Not even a minister of finance. While the North and South West carved up the national cake, the South East stood outside the banquet hall, hungry and proud, holding a sign that read all or nothing.
Now Peter Obi is repeating that exact mistake. Not with Buhari this time, but with his own solo adventure. And the Obidients are clapping like trained seals while their leader marches the entire South East off another cliff. Let us state it plainly so that no one can pretend to misunderstand. The most realistic path for an Igbo president in the nearest foreseeable future been a minority was never a solo run in a divided field. It was the vice presidency. It was accepting the number two slot in a winning coalition, serving diligently for four or eight years, and then making a credible, negotiation-backed claim for the top job. That is how the South West got the chance after 8 years of being number two to the North. That is how real politics works, not the fantasy politics of hashtags and street rallies.
But Obi threw that chance into the gutter. He went solo. He refused to be anyone’s vice president. He refused to negotiate a united opposition ticket. And in doing so, he split the southern vote three ways between himself, Tinubu, and the southern supporters of Atiku. He divided the opposition vote so thoroughly that even a wounded Tinubu walked away with victory. And now, in the next cycle, the same drama is unfolding. Obi is still refusing to step down for any coalition. The Obidients are still screaming that Atiku must bow. And the only outcome of this madness is either a Tinubu re-election or an Atiku presidency. Either way, the loser is Peter Obi. And the bigger loser is the South East. Because when the next government is formed, whether by Atiku or Tinubu, do you think any of them will remember the South East? No. They will remember that the Obidients spent years insulting them, dividing their votes, and making impossible demands. And the South East will be left, once again, with the empty pride of having refused the bird in hand while chasing a mythical bird in the bush.
Let us talk about the men you mock while they keep the opposition alive. Atiku Abubakar scored more votes than Obi in 2023. That is not an opinion. It is a fact. And today, Atiku is spending millions of his personal dollars to keep the ADC secretariat breathing. He funds a lobby contract in the United States. He bankrolls support groups across the country. He is keeping the opposition machinery running while your Obidient brigades do nothing but insult him on Twitter. You demand that Atiku step down for Obi. But you have never asked yourself a simple question. Why should any man sacrifice his political structure, his money, and his northern base for a candidate whose supporters have called him every name from thief to corpse? The truth that would burn your screens is this. The Obidients do not see the sacrifices of others. You only see your own. And not only do you want your sacrifices acknowledged, you want everyone else forced to kneel before them as if they built nothing, bled nothing, and spent nothing.
And the North watches all of this with a quiet smile. Because the North knows something the Obidient movement refuses to learn. The South East has no record or antecedents of winning in national politics. Not one presidential election. Not one successful coalition where an Igbo candidate emerged as the dominant partner. No northerner has ever paired with a South East candidate and won. Ever. Zero. So when you scream that the North must accept an Igbo president, the North asks a simple question. What have you ever produced to deserve that trust? Where is the evidence that the South East can deliver bloc votes outside its own region? Where is the history of strategic patience, of taking the vice presidency first and building from there? There is none. Because every time the vice presidency was offered to an Igbo man under Buhari, the Igbo voting population rejected it. They refused to vote Buhari. They made the same all-or-nothing demand. And they got nothing.
Now history is repeating itself. Peter Obi is running solo again. He is dividing southern votes again. He is making enemies of both the Atiku camp and the Tinubu camp. And rather than learning from the disaster of 2023, the Obidients are doubling down on the same failed calculation. Insults instead of negotiation. Demands instead of alliance building. A beautiful, passionate, utterly suicidal march toward another defeat. And the saddest part is that the South East will bear the consequences for a generation. Because after Obi loses again, no northern or southwestern political heavyweight will offer an Igbo vice president anytime soon. They will say, why should we? We offered you the number two spot before, and you rejected it. We offered you a chance to build credibility, and you spat on it. Now you want us to hand you the number one spot? On what basis?
Here is the question that no Obidient influencer has ever answered without blocking the asker. If an Igbo man who rejects Obi is an enemy, what do you call a Hausa man who rejects Atiku for Obi? But more importantly, what do you call an entire political movement that has now twice robbed its own ethnic group of the chance to produce Nigeria’s vice president and eventually the president? What do you call leaders who repeat the exact same mistake with Buhari that they are now repeating with Atiku and Tinubu? You call them tragic heroes at best. Or at worst, you call them the gravediggers of Igbo political ambition. The choice is yours. But do not say no one warned you. This op-ed is that warning. Written in the ashes of 2023. Addressed to every Obidient who still believes that all or nothing is a winning strategy. It is not. It has never been. And the South East will keep losing until you learn that sometimes the vice presidency is not a prison. It is a stepping stone. And a stepping stone is better than an empty hand.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via bellodoka82@gmail.com
This is brilliantly written. Unfortunately most obidients are inexperienced. Merely idealistic and unrealistic arm chair politicians. They learn nothing pass Obi’s webs of lies. Their eyes go soon ‘waye’.