Aisha Yesufu, a member of the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential campaign team, has clarified that Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the last general election, did not create the Obidient movement. According to Yesufu, the movement emerged as a result of the widespread discontent following the EndSARS protests.
In a post on X, Yesufu explained that the collective anger of Nigerian youths, spurred by the EndSARS killings, led to the formation of the Obidient movement, with Obi becoming a beneficiary of this collective anger.
“Nobody created the Obidient movement. After the #EndSARS killing by APC government, many became interested in politics since they were mocked and told to vote for those who killed the protesters. There was a collective anger to vote out APC. Peter Obi was a beneficiary of that collective anger of the people,” Yesufu wrote.
She further noted that when Obi announced his presidential ambitions, many who were already part of this collective anger supported him, leading to the coining of the term “Obidient” to describe his supporters. “There was already a movement before the name OBIdient was coined,” she added.