Ebenezer Obadare, a Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, CFR, says he wasn’t surprised that Peter Obi did not win the 2023 presidential election.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, was one of the three major candidates that contested for the office of the first citizen. He ran under the umbrella of the Labour Party.
The others are Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Obadare, speaking with Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas, co-hosts of ‘What Could Go Right?’, a weekly podcast last Thursday, said he had predicted Obi’s loss in the hotly contested presidential election.
“I think the question for me as an analyst from the get-go was: is there a chance for Obi to become president? And I did not see that,” the Nigerian-American academic said.
“And all my attempts to persuade my friends in the Western media that you’re in a bubble, what you are saying is not correct. So I wasn’t surprised that Peter Obi lost. As a matter of fact, I predicted it.”
On whether the February 25 presidential poll was credible, Obadare remarked that despite the irregularities recorded during the election, it was, to a great extent, credible.
He said: “If you’re thinking in terms of just one single electoral cycle, this just concluded election, then obviously, you have a lot to — you know, you have a lot on your mind in terms of irregularities, flaws, and all kinds of things that could have gone better.
“Does that mean the election overall is not credible? I think I’m in a minority, you know, in this, in which I still think that overall, all things considered, I think we had a credible election, an election that, you know, had so many flaws and wrinkles that maybe might have been avoided, but yeah, you know, I’m one of those people who say, look, we’ll take it.”
He affirmed that Nigerians will forget the episode and accept that the controversial election was indeed credible when the post-election agitation dies down.
Obadare said: “I think the worst time, probably the worst time to look at any election, even in the most advanced, you know, economies, is right after the election, right? When your team has lost, you’re not thinking very clearly. And I’m saying that because I’m also into sports and all of that. But once you put that loss in a bigger context, you start thinking, well, maybe there are lessons, you know, to be learnt here. Maybe things are not as bad.
“And I’m saying that because I think that once the dust settles on this, once people come down a little bit, either on the side of those who have won the election or those who think they’ve lost the election, I think people will realize that the Independent National Electoral Commission, which is the board in charge of organizing elections in Nigeria, the political process, the party system, that something significant happened here, that we have a lot to celebrate as a country.
“So if you think historically about where Nigeria is coming from since 1999, and if you think about the specific context, the sociological material context in which the election was held, then you have to say that there’s something positive to take away from.”
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