I have carefully read Obi-tuary by Sam Omatseye. I must say that, once again, Sam did not disappoint as an elegant purveyor of prose. But beyond his effervescent style and intellectual sophistry, Sam came up morally short. He set out to portray Peter Obi and the emerging Obidient Movement as a narrow ethnic (Igbo) affair and as separatist militancy in disguise. He failed woefully.
Linking Peter Obi with IPOB is as logical as linking Bishop Hassan Kukah with Boko Haram. Saying that OBIDIENCE is a strictly Igbo movement is an insult to the intelligence of millions of Nigerians worldwide who transcend ethnic, religious, regional and party barriers to support a man of real substance.
It is easy to see Omatseye’s brief and his desperation to stop a candidate who embodies a burgeoning moral and ethical revolution. It is easy to see his readiness to kill the best thing that has happened to Nigerian nationalism since the Independence movement of the 1950s.
By his words, now on marble, Omatseye has chosen (as he has done his entire career) to put his intellect at the service of crooked men of means. This time, Omatseye is fronting for men whose greatest achievement has been to ruin a country they now desire to rule. How sad.
Omatseye is proof that learning without character is dangerous. A few years ago, he might have succeeded in swaying a few ignorant people. Today, Nigerians, especially the youth, are no longer ignorant of the true state of their country and the best available path to their redemption. And even a million Omatseyes cannot shift their righteous resolve.
