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9 months in the past, Peter Obi was a member of Nigeria’s principal opposition get together, the Folks’s Democratic Social gathering, and one of many 15 presidential aspirants cleared for its ticket. As a former state governor, he stood solidly within the ranks of the political institution.
On Wednesday, after a outstanding transformation into an outsider candidate working for the little-known Labour Social gathering, he got here in third within the race for the presidency, in response to election officers.
Mr. Obi’s working mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, vowed on Wednesday that the get together would contest the election outcomes, saying the poll was tainted by violence, voter intimidation and suppression. He mentioned his group would make its problem in opposition to the declared victory of Bola Tinubu of the governing get together, by means of “all authorized and peaceable means.”
A former governor of southeastern Anambra state with a fame for frugality, Mr. Obi left the Folks’s Democratic Social gathering the day earlier than Atiku Abubakar, a former vp who was considered one of his principal rivals, turned its presidential candidate.
A couple of days later, Mr. Obi received the Labour Social gathering ticket and commenced one of the vital outstanding political campaigns in Nigerian historical past. It was pushed by his multitude of followers, together with well-known figures just like the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
On social media, his followers name themselves the Obidients.
Drawing on a deep properly of anger on the governing get together — notably among the many nation’s hundreds of thousands of digitally-savvy youths — he related on points that mattered to them: unemployment, justice, combating corruption and creating financial alternatives. Amid a wave of younger individuals leaving or making an attempt to go away the nation, he gave hope that Nigeria may turn out to be a spot they may keep and thrive.
And although he’s 61, for a lot of voters he turned the youthful candidate — primarily in distinction with the 76-year-old Mr. Abubakar and the opposite front-runner, 70-year-old Bola Tinubu — an essential think about a rustic the place the median age is eighteen.
In an interview with The New York Instances earlier than the election, Mr. Obi mentioned that he would “aggressively” pursue the event of agriculture to drive Nigeria’s oil-dependent economic system. He mentioned he would additionally improve the nation’s manufacturing base and “declare conflict on power” — Nigeria has endemic power issues, regardless of being considered one of Africa’s largest oil producers.
A high precedence was to unite a rustic that he mentioned was more and more divided alongside ethnic traces, and to maneuver previous the financial and safety shocks which have left many feeling despondent.
“What drives each nation is hope,” Mr. Obi mentioned.
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