Meet the man rallying "Obi-dients" to shake up Nigeria's election
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Loading... - Bertrand Herve
- 23 Aug 2022
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Peter Obi is hardly a political outsider, but the bespeckled former governor says he is looking to harness Nigerians' anger with the status quo to power his third-party presidential bid.
Obi, 61, has generated substantial buzz among younger voters in Africa's most populous democracy, where the average age is 18, but the president - and both major-party candidates for the February 2023 election - are septuagenarian political veterans.
His followers, who call themselves "Obi-dients", say he can solve what ails Nigeria, including unprecedented insecurity, industrial-scale oil theft and allegations of widespread corruption eight years after President Muhammadu Buhari ran promising to eradicate it.
Nigerian electoral law forbids candidates from campaigning before Sept. 28. In a recent interview at his Lagos residence, Obi, speaking as a private citizen, said Nigeria's problems could turn voters against the two dominant parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP).
"The system they've operated over the years, it has brought us to where we are," Obi told Reuters.
Bola Tinubu, 70, is the APC candidate and Atiku Abubakar, 75, is running for the opposition PDP. Read More...
