Obi’s Upstart Election Campaign Redraws Nigeria’s Political Map
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(Bloomberg) -- Outsider Peter Obi came up short in Nigeria’s presidential race, but his upstart campaign has redrawn the political map in Africa’s biggest democracy.
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Under Obi, the Labour Party — whose candidate won just 0.02% of the vote in 2019 — secured nearly a quarter of the ballots this year, winning a dozen of the country’s 37 states and territories. It wasn’t enough to beat president-elect Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, but it was an unprecedented rebuke of the two major parties that have dominated Nigerian politics since democracy returned in 1999.
The former Anambra state governor won areas previously dominated by the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party. But his biggest victory came in Lagos state, the country’s commercial hub, where he narrowly beat Tinubu on his political home turf.
Lagos will be the scene of Tinubu’s first political test as president-elect on March 11, when the state holds gubernatorial elections. He has handpicked every governor since serving in the post from 1999 to 2007.
Labour’s energized youthful voting base has already set its sights on Lagos, which has an economy larger than most African countries. Its candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, will face off against incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC and the PDP’s Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran.
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