2023 ELECTION: WHY NIGERIA’S CORRUPT POWERFUL ELITES ARE AGAINST CANDIDATE PETER OBI

By Ikenna Asomba

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and seventh-most populous country in the world is home to more than 200 million people.

In size, Nigeria is about 356,669 Sq Mi (923,768 Sq Km), slightly larger than the States of Texas and Minnesota in the United States.

Nigeria, a diverse multi-ethnic country with over 389 Ethnic Nationalities and more than 520 spoken languages is blessed with abundant natural resources, notably large deposits of petroleum and natural gas, including mineral resources such as gold, silver, coal, granite, iron-ore, barite, bitumen, gemstones, clay, feldspar, copper ore, zinc, dolomite, lead ore, limestone, phosphate, galena, gypsum, wolframite, kaolin, salt, magnesium, quartzite, tin ore, fluorite, manganese, tar sands, columbite, diatomite, titanium, marble, uranium, talc and silica.

Aside more than 35 mineral resources which Nigeria is abundantly blessed with; Nigeria produces daily over 1.8m barrels of crude oil.

The by-products contained in a barrel of crude oil (about 158.978litres) if judiciously harnessed can see Nigeria transmogrifying into a manufacturing and exporting hub as a barrel can produce a lot such as:

1. Wax for 170 birthday candles or 27 crayons.

2. Distillate fuel to give a large truck (five miles per gallon) for almost 40 miles, if jet fuel fraction is included, that same truck can run nearly 50 miles.

3. Asphalt to make about one gallon of tar for patching roofs or streets.

4. Lubricants to make about one quart of motor oil.

5. About four pounds of charcoal briquettes

6. Gasoline to drive a medium-sized car (17 miles per gallon) for more than 280 miles.

7. Nearly 70kilowatt-hours of electricity at a power plant generated by residual fuel.

8. Liquefied gases such as propane to fill 12 small (14.1 ounce) cylinders for home, camping or workshop use.

9. Enough petrochemicals to also provide the base for 540 toothbrushes.

10. 750 pocket combs.

11. 39 polyester shirts.

12. 23 hula hoops.

13. 135 four-inch rubber balls.

14. 65 plastic drinking cups.

15. 195 one-cup measuring cups.

16. 11 plastic telephone housing and 65 plastic dustpans.

17. The lighter materials in a barrel of crude oil (158.978liters) are used mainly for paint thinners and dry-cleaning solvents, and they can make nearly a quart of one of these products.

18. The miscellaneous fraction of what is left still contains enough by-products to be used in medicinal oils, still gas, road oil and plant condensates.

From the foregoing facts, it’s instructive to state that crude oil is indeed a blessing, not a curse to the Nigerian State, as it is a real industrial horn of plenty. But when you look at the appalling condition of lives of the Nigerian people, particularly, the Niger Delta Region which produces the crude oil, you will weep.

Worrisomely, in its November 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed that over 133million Nigerians are living in poverty, representing 63 per cent of the country’s population.

Let me also point that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria as of 2021 was $440.78 billion, far below the GDP of the State of Texas which was $2trillion in 2021.

Howbeit, of all frontline candidates for the February 25, 2023, Presidential Election, among whom are Bola Tinubu (All Progressives Congress, APC); Atiku Abubakar (Peoples Democratic Party, PDP) and Rabiu Kwankwaso (New Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP), Mr. Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) remains the only man deeply perturbed by the sorry state of Nigeria and Nigerians, despite the country’s abundant natural and human resources.

Critically examining Nigeria’s political firmament, it appears Obi is now on collision course with many of Nigeria’s notorious and powerful criminal elites because at various campaign stops, town hall meetings, media parleys and conferences with several stakeholders across Nigeria’s six geo-political zones, he has continued to reaffirm the determination of his administration when elected to office in February 2023 and assumes presidential duties on May 29, 2023, to dismantle structures of criminality preventing over 200million Nigerians from enjoying the full benefits and potentials of their country.

Addressing Nigerians on October 29, 2022, during his campaign kick-off rally in Nasarawa State, North Central Nigeria, Obi averred that the state’s landmass is vast enough to provide food for the people of the state, pointing that Nasarawa is bigger than Israel’s landmass in square kilometers.

Assuring his readiness to invest in the Nigerian youths to help pull people out of poverty, Obi said: “Remember what I said, Nasarawa has 27.1 thousand square kilometers of land. It’s bigger than Israel with 22.1 thousand square kilometers. Nasarawa would feed itself. We’ll put money here to make sure that we pull the youths out of poverty.”

Obi was right. Nasarawa State measures 27,117 square kilometers, while the size of Israel is 22,145 square kilometers.

Having reeled out several by-products Nigeria can produce from 1 barrel of crude oil if properly harnessed, tie the information to the fact that Nigeria losses about 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day to oil thieves, you will weep for Nigeria, especially when compared in terms of growth and development to other oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China, Canada, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, among others.

Saddened by this development, speaking on September 12, 2022, at the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) Standing Committee Meeting, held at St. Matthias House, Abuja, Obi decried that of all 13 countries belonging to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), only Nigeria was not meeting its supply quota, whereas other countries were angling for more.

“In July 2022, Nigeria did not supply 717,000 barrels per day out of its 1.8million barrel per day quota. This amounted to lost revenue of $22,227,000 daily at the rate of $110 per barrel which in a month totaled over $2.4billion. Using an average exchange rate of N550/$1, this amounted to an excess of N1trillion lost in the month of July alone.”

Speaking further at the event, Obi revealed that N1.6 trillion was Nigeria’s January-April 2022 income, while the country incurred N4trillion in expenditures resulting to over N3trillion deficit.

“Every day you hear people are stealing crude oil. The oil is being stolen by people in government. Oil is not sweet (candy) you put in your pocket. For you to steal oil, a ship must come to your territorial waters and must be approved by the Navy. Every ship is registered, and everybody knows where the ship is going to, and the ship must have approval. So, the only people who can steal crude oil are the people in power,” Obi declared.

It would also be recalled that in 2014, the NBS disclosed that from 1961 to 2014, Nigeria had a crude oil production volume of about of 32.7 billion barrels valued at about N118.4 trillion, stating that since the return of democracy in 1999, Nigeria has had a crude oil production value of a whopping N116trillion.

Sadly, after over six decades characterized by several oil booms, Nigeria is yet to morph into a developed economy, even as it has been ravaged till date by endemic public service corruption, successive governments after another.

Countries like China, Indonesia, Malaysia and India that were at par with Nigeria at Independence in 1960 have left her still grappling with teething problems of nationhood, worst of all epileptic electricity across the country.

Of all frontline Presidential candidates, Obi of LP is one candidate who has continued to re-affirm his administration’s determination to dismantle the old order of endemic stealing, public service corruption and machine politics of patronages, nepotism and cronyism.

These among other reasons are why Nigeria’s corrupt powerful elites who are neck-deep in the old order are on collision course with Obi, who has wormed his way into the hearts of millions of Nigerian Youths.

Finally, it is instructive to point out that ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 elections, the country’s apex electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that it registered a total of 9.5 million new voters, with 76.5 per cent of them comprising of young people between 18-34 years.

With young people between 18-34 years making up about half of the over 93 million people registered to vote in Nigeria next February, major polls conducted by globally recognized pollsters such as Bloomberg, Nextier and ANAP Foundation/NOI have continued to project Obi as winner of next year’s Presidential election.

This is a welcoming development for Nigeria and over 200 million Nigerians.

Ikenna Asomba is a Journalist and Post-Graduate Student of Political Science, Public Administration and Public Policy, Eastern Illinois University, Illinois, he writes from Charleston Illinois, United States.