This week we'll start off with a bit on Westminster-style parliamentary politics. This, since Peter Obi, the NDC presidential candidate, has advised President Bola Tinubu to take a leaf out of the political book of British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who yesterday announced his resignation from office. The resignation was a long time coming. It was an outcome that had been foretold for many weeks, even months. But the man chose to stay on and fight. And fight he did till the bitter end. So, the first thing Mr. Obi needs to be clear about is that Keir Starmer didn't leave voluntarily. He lost the confidence of his cabinet, who must save their own jobs by demanding his resignation. Unlike a Nigerian president, a British prime minister is just first among equals.
Their time in office is determined by the confidence reposed in them by other parliamentarians of the same party, and it is clear that Starmer no longer enjoyed the support of the majority of the parliamentarians. This followed a succession of policy and administrative failures, instances of personal weakness bordering on poor judgment, including totally avoidable scandals that scarred his government. Some of his cabinet members had to resign because of these. His defence secretary, John Healey, delivered a scathing rebuke of Starmer's defence expenditure, which he thought was both inadequate and well behind time. It was in the heat of this that he made his way out of the government. Wes Streeting was another critic of the PM who also had to leave as health secretary after disagreeing with Starmer's leadership style.
The details of the issues surrounding the PM's resignation need not detain us since that is not the point I wish to establish at this time. Rather, my point is to show that Peter Obi was, as usual, merely tapping into the emotion of Nigerians; he was being opportunistic in his criticism of Abuja without showing a full grasp of the issues before him. He saw a moment he thought he could tap into to bring himself back into public reckoning, and he took it, after he was called out for some of his typically exaggerated claims this past week. His claim of an entire faculty of a US university made up of ex-convicts is still floating in the air. There is nothing to glamourize about Starmer's resignation. Left to him, he would have continued to fight to stay on. But he was a band leader without a chorus, or a chorus that was desperate not to sink with a leader whose poll ratings have continued to plummet despite his attempts to reassure his people.
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As at last weekend, when the writing was clearly on the wall that he would have to leave, he remained confident that he could weather the storm. Which was why he wept, as at least two of his last predecessors did, when he announced his resignation. He was loath to leave, but the odds were stacked against him and so he had to fall on his own sword. Even in what many would consider a stable democracy, one that has lasted all of 811 years since the Magna Carta, leaders still don't leave simply because they are asked to. We saw it with Joe Biden and also Donald Trump during his first term as president. Trump was practically compelled to leave, and that after a failed coup attempt. I am drawing attention to this to show that there must be compelling evidence that a leader has truly failed before anyone can demand their resignation. This is not to justify the stay-put tendencies of anyone, even leaders from the so-called saner climes where the political culture is less ethnically fraught than Nigeria's.
Theirs is a polity where there are solid institutional structures to ensure that neither the government nor the opposition can manipulate the system for political gains. Only those willfully blind cannot see that the state of insecurity in Nigeria has been turned into a cudgel with which political actors hope to gain power. The climate of fear that would lead to the explosion of a bomb in Lagos was definitely manufactured. It's neither a proof of competence nor lack of it. It is pure artifice aimed at creating fear and a sense of helpless confusion. A perceptive opposition leader not driven by populist tricks will be careful not to lend it credence. Yes, a leader who has failed to live up to the expectation of the electorate need not stand in the way of the country. They should leave as a matter of principle. But the manner in which they leave matters. They should not leave simply because an opposition that is merely being political, and would probably not perform better, has demanded it. The departure of any leader is as important as the reason for it.
Any armchair critic can demand the resignation of a leader. That is quite easy. The harder task is to offer a critical prognosis of what led to that demand. In this case, Peter Obi is yet to demonstrate any competence in that regard. He has been very loud on questions but silent on solutions. These days he claims he doesn't want his ideas stolen. Seriously? That is not the case with the UK, where he chose to fish for examples this time. Opposition leaders like Kemi Badenoch are noted for their robust take on possible alternatives to some of the wrong-headed policies of the Labour Party. Question Time is not a session for the faint-hearted parliamentarian. Everyone comes prepared. It is one of the most brilliant elements of the Westminster system. With that, the emptiness of public officers cannot be hidden, not even opposition figures that are often full of claims they ask the populace to go and verify.
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Be it public expenditure, health, or immigration, you can always tell where Badenoch stands no matter what you think of her politics and her stance on issues of the day. Her hard-line position on immigration issues is not a matter of debate. She is on record as proposing very harsh policies that many will have no worry labelling anti-immigration. That is more than anyone can say about Peter Obi, who gauges the mood of the people, particularly his followers, before taking a public stand. On the raging issues of the day, where does Peter Obi stand? Can anyone make sense of Obi's position on IPOB? The other day, he cautioned against ethnic profiling. It was his contribution to the debate that followed the abduction of school pupils and their teachers in Oyo. He is resolutely blind to happenings in the south-east, where Nnamdi Kanu, Simon Ekpa and their followers were on rampage for six wasted years.
