Peter Obi may have lost the Nigerian presidential election, but he and the movement he leads may yet win the political war. This time last year, no one saw Peter Obi coming. Mentally, Nigerians were preparing for yet another general election in a series dominated since the country’s return to democracy in 1999 by the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) and its rival People’s Democratic Party (PDP). An uninspiring two-horse race seemed all but guaranteed,...

The Igbo political elite faces the challenge of transforming an unimpeachable moral argument into a winning political coalition. As campaigning for the just concluded presidential election gathered pace, Peter Obi, standard bearer of the Labour Party (LP) found himself athwart two apparently contrary impulses. The first, let’s call it the liberal impulse, centered on the irrepressible energy and creativity of the “Obi-dient,” the mass of mostly young enthusiasts who had come to see the former Anambra State...