Don't blame Peter Obi for his zealous supporters

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By Abimbola Adelakun

July 7, 2022

At this point in his campaign, Labor Presidential candidate Peter Obi is expected to lay out the political ideas and ideology that will define his government and build a team of capable managers capable of following his vision . For a man who has amassed a growing swath of motivated, organic followers in a short period of time, he needs to make the most of the interest he generates. The last thing – the very last thing – he needs right now is to wring his hands and apologize for the zealousness of his followers. Nothing they do is new. This is the nature of elections, made possible by social media, where comments, exchanges and interactions can create momentum. Besides, what Nigerian politician would be embarrassed to be similarly followed by those whose bank accounts he didn't have to credit first?

After watching how his followers rushed Covenant Christian Center senior pastor Poju Oyemade, who tweeted what the online group saw as criticism of Obi's candidacy, Obi begged them to calm down. While I appreciate Obi wanting to inscribe the Democratic ethos of reasonable debate and polite dissent, he also needs to know that the culture of online rage precedes his presidential bid. 10 years ago, a media aide to the president masterfully called the army of cybercritics "collective children of wrath." Since then, nothing Nigeria has done has quelled the fury of this generation that never knew good governance. Now they are rightly even more angry that they could pass on to their children the trauma of living in a bankrupt country that they inherited from their parents. The older they get, the more they are gripped by the urgency of solving Nigeria's perennial dysfunction and the more intense the passion with which they will approach the issues. You cannot blame those who live in a society where the conditions of their humanity are systematically decimated by the political class for not having a distinguished exchange with those who facilitate social degradation.

A rule of public conduct used to be to keep your political views to yourself unless you were sure you were in the company of people who shared them. Politics divides people into camps and discussing it puts people in a position to justify themselves against you. It could ruin social relations. Nowadays, not thanks to the immediacy and interactivity of social media, some of these rules of etiquette have disappeared. The narcissist in all of us won't stop talking; some of us can no longer move our own arms in our own homes without feeling compelled to share them with semi-strangers online. We want to be heard, we want to be seen, and we want to be the center of public admiration. It feels positively affirmative when you get likes and likes to express private thoughts until the topic at hand draws a hostile crowd. Social media interaction reminds you of the old proverb: one person can cook for a whole village to eat and they will all be satisfied. But if the village reciprocates, the crushing result will not be satisfactory.

Unless accompanied by violence, no politician needs to rein in the exuberance of his supporters' forceful responses to opponents. It is like asking football players to apologize for the hooliganism of their fans. And comparatively, politics is a much more passionate game. People invest their whole being in it and it shows in their passionate online and offline conversations. After the hotly contested 2016 US election, families torn between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump struggled to celebrate their annual Thanksgiving holiday just weeks later. Some canceled planned trips and vowed to stay away from certain family members because of the presidential candidate they were supporting. Political discussions will always be volatile, especially in an election year. To express an opinion in the agora of social media is to be exposed and to have some of the intense emotions that govern the times being projected in its direction.

From my perch, I have witnessed tensions in every election season since 2007 or so. Previously, it was Dr. Goodluck Jonathan's supporters against everyone else. The terrain of social media was still relatively new at the time, and it was the attempt to understand its nature and the role it would play in Nigerian politics that prompted Jonathan's assistant to label the critics "children of anger". In the 2011 elections, the "election mania", unfortunately, did not stay in line. Some supporters of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retired), who failed to...