9 months in the past, Peter Obi was a member of Nigeria’s important opposition get together, the Folks’s Democratic Celebration, 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 exceptional transformation into an outsider candidate working for the little-known Labour Celebration, he got here in third within the race for the presidency, based on 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 stated his staff would make its problem towards the declared victory of Bola Tinubu of the governing get together, by “all authorized and peaceable means.”
A former governor of southeastern Anambra state with a popularity for frugality, Mr. Obi left the Folks’s Democratic Celebration the day earlier than Atiku Abubakar, a former vice chairman who was one in every of his important rivals, grew to become its presidential candidate.
Just a few days later, Mr. Obi received the Labour Celebration ticket and started some of the exceptional 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 nicely of anger on the governing get together — significantly among the many nation’s thousands and thousands of digitally-savvy youths — he linked on points that mattered to them: unemployment, justice, combating corruption and creating financial alternatives. Amid a wave of younger individuals leaving or attempting to depart the nation, he gave hope that Nigeria may change into a spot they may keep and thrive.
And although he’s 61, for a lot of voters he grew to become the youthful candidate — primarily in distinction with the 76-year-old Mr. Abubakar and the opposite front-runner, 70-year-old Bola Tinubu — an necessary consider a rustic the place the median age is eighteen.
In an interview with The New York Occasions earlier than the election, Mr. Obi stated that he would “aggressively” pursue the event of agriculture to drive Nigeria’s oil-dependent financial system. He stated he would additionally enhance the nation’s manufacturing base and “declare battle on vitality” — Nigeria has endemic vitality issues, regardless of being one in every of Africa’s largest oil producers.
A prime precedence was to unite a rustic that he stated 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 stated.
