2023 and some meaningless endorsements

• Published date: 08 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

THE strength of an endorsement lies in the established capacity of the one giving you backing to turn things in your favour. That is why those who make light of Obasanjo lining up behind Obi have a point. In the last two or three election cycles, everyone he supported failed woefully and those he opposed carried the day' - Festus Eriye, Editor, The Nation on Sunday in 'The Tricky Business of Political Endorsement.

'You and your cronies mentioned in your letter have left the country worse than you met it. Nigeria is not the creation of any of you, and although you feel you own it and are 'Mr Nigeria', deciding whether the country stays together or not, and who rules it; you don't. Nigeria is solely the creation of the British'.

… 'This is the end of my communication with you for life. I pray Nigeria survives your continual intervention in its affairs' - Dr Iyabo Obasanjo, DVM PhD, in a scathing letter to her father.

I have hardly stopped laughing since these endorsements, especially from the usual suspects - those who can't, by themselves, win a councillorship election - started pouring in for Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate.

It began with the one from former president Olusegun Obasanjo, a man for whose sake I have been praying that the Nobel Prize Board of Directors will, very soon, inaugurate a prize for letter writing.

Becoming a Nobel Laureate will do two things for President

Obasanjo: level him up, not in mental magnitude as defined by the Avatar (AWO) with Professor Wole Soyinka, the man who, with the same immortal AWO, constitutes the unchanging foci of his mono directional, assumed competition. Also, that pedestal would finally assuage for his fruitless attempt at becoming the U.N General- Secretary - a project during which the late MKO Abiola - who he never one day mentioned during his 8 year rule- went out of his way to plead with the Nobel Laureate on his behalf - Obasanjo looks to me like a man in perpetual quest for relevance, even after twice serving as Head of state/ President, of the largest Black man's nation on earth.

Before some church men and a Sheik took Atiku to beg him in 2019, relishing in which event he then endorsed Atiku for the 2019 presidential election, below is what he told the world:'If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not know, yes. But once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support,'.

'It is not a question of working with or not working with an individual. If you are working for the...