On Monday, 1 August 2022, the news reported that Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, the running mate to Peter Obi under the presidential banner of the Labour Party called a press conference at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja where he issued a statement complaining about fake social media accounts. It is the laziest and most useless complaint I’ve heard in this political season.
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On Monday, 1 August 2022, the news reported that Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, the running mate to Peter Obi under the presidential banner of the Labour Party called a press conference at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja where he issued a statement complaining about fake social media accounts. It is the laziest and most useless complaint I’ve heard in this political season.
You are running mate to a major presidential candidate in the forthcoming election and you are coming out almost a month after being declared the running mate to claim that there are impostors in the social media using your name with fake social media accounts, but you couldn’t exactly mention these fake accounts or specifically what the so-called imposters are misrepresenting and those behind it all. You only mentioned that you had an interview with BBC Hausa “only to find contents of the said interview misrepresented by another social media page.” Okay, what social media page are you talking about and what exactly did you say that was misrepresented, you didn’t tell us. All you are saying is that complaints about the fake accounts have been duly lodged and registered with the relevant host platforms….” Which host platforms and when did you lodge these complaints and what are the specific contents of these complaints, you’re not telling us even in a press conference you called for the purpose nor in a press statement you issued on the matter.
True, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed littered his press statement with claims of him making complaints “which were never attended to satisfactorily,” but who did he make these complaints to, especially when he is claiming to have been suffering these misrepresentations and impostor attacks for “nearly a decade.” I mean, he is effectively saying the opening of fake accounts in his name and without approval and the misrepresentations have been on long before he joined the Labour Party and became Peter Obi’s running mate. He also did not say his withdrawal from the Kaduna governorship primary under the PDP on the 24th of May, 2022 was as a result of any fake social media websites or any impostor saying things in the social media he never said. He said clearly that he withdrew “on grounds of divergent principles.” So, who exactly are the people behind the fake websites and what exactly are they faking? Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed will not say.
He said some of “these communications” he’s complained about “have been, and continue to be, premeditated” and designed to set him “against legitimate and established responsible religious organisations,” and in some cases portray him “negatively in relation to certain sentiments and core values of our society.” He did not tell us which communication or communications he is referring to and which religious organizations he was being set up against. Yet, he was quick to jump to the conclusion that there is “sufficient justification to conclude that these unholy acts against a real change agent at a politically sensitive period may be sponsored by opponents and enemies of progress” to disparage him, stain his image and distract them “from the noble objective of rescuing Nigeria.” In a further leap in logic, he went alarmist, declaring that “the poor attempt to perpetuate these condemnable and unethical acts by misguided elements also have the unfortunate tendency to compromise security.” Compromise security? How? Okay, did he report to the Police or the security services? He evidently did not.
Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed ultimately got to the point of giving his reason for the so-called attacks against him through the impostors and fake accounts. He said: “The rising profile of HE Peter Obi, and the growing fortunes of Labour Party have become such a bitter pill for some Nigerian retrogressive status quo politicians to the extent of apparently committing huge amounts of money in creating and spreading falsehood in the name of politics.” But where did he get this information? Where is the evidence of his claim? Who are the “Nigerian retrogressive status quo politicians…committing huge amounts of money in creating and spreading falsehood in the name of politics” and who think their best strategy is to target Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed to the extent that he has to now call a press conference and issue a press statement against this? Again, the fellow did not say. He implied they’ve made “wild allegations” against him, but what are these allegations? He won’t tell us.
Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed said he was dissociating himself “from the creation, ownership, and operation of any such media accounts” and he equally declared that all such exchanges and communications therefrom are without his knowledge or input in any way whatsoever; yet he will not mention the accounts he is referring to and will not direct us to media accounts he operates that properly represent him – places we should be going to get the right information about him or what he says. And he is the running mate in a presidential ticket of a major political party who will necessarily remain in public space and remain a subject of public discussion. Where does he expect us to get the right information about him if impostors and fake social media pages are at work against him?
But, there is a clue as to why Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed made this press statement and his true targets. This he indicated in Paragraph 13 of his press statement.
In the paragraph, he said:
“I offer no apologies for having been deemed suitable by a team of diligent and competent head hunters in matters relating to Candidacy in 2023, but I must observe that there are more decent and honourable ways for disagreeing with the issue of prefential (sic) choice. The Choice is for HE Peter Obi, then and now. All other interested parties are welcome to approach HE on how to be accommodated in the noble and patriotic plan to rescue Nigeria.”
It’s obvious from the above that this is an internal Labour Party matter. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed is implying that those behind the fake websites and those using impostors to attack him are people who are not happy that he’s been chosen as the running mate to Peter Obi. Of course, these persons can only be members of the Labour Party. He is asking these discontents to seek “more decent and honourable ways” to disagree with his choice as running mate to Obi. He is saying the choice was Obi’s to make and that all other “interested parties are welcome to approach HE on how to be accommodated in the noble and patriotic plan to rescue Nigeria.” So, clearly, this has nothing to do with others outside the Labour Party. That is why Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed could not name names. Those fighting him are his people.
And this brings us to an issue that has been under the news radar for a while. Peter Obi going to the Labour Party to seize the presidential ticket in a jiffy was not well-received by all leaders of the Labour Party. In fact, it factionalized the party, despite the friendly press pretending Obi is the popular choice of the party without dissent. We know for a fact there is dissent. We also know that the leaders of the Labour Party who accepted Obi and helped get him the ticket were not originally in bed with the idea that Obi should choose his running mate. In fact, it was the reason Dr Doyin Okupe, his friend with whom he joined the Labour Party, was named as the placeholder (in place of a substantive running mate) because the parties just couldn’t agree.
The Labour Party leaders were of the view that since they have delivered the presidential ticket to Obi on a platter, he should repay the favour by allowing them to choose a real Labour man or woman, their own person, as his running mate. Obi refused and so there was a stalemate with Okupe, in frustration, putting himself forward as a placeholder while the matter remained unresolved. It was an attempt to beat INEC deadline that finally led to another faction within those who originally accepted Obi naming Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as Obi’s ruining mate under the clear direction of Obi.
But while the pro-Obi forces were celebrating the naming of Yusuf Baba-Ahmed as if his emergence is the best thing since Abakaliki rice, many members of the Labour Party were weary. A few days ago, I had in a commentary made on my Facebook page (in response to the news that Obi did not join the NLC and TUC strike when he is the presidential candidate of their party) talked about the fact that Obi is not ideologically one with Labour. I had also pointed out that rather than choosing a real Labour man or woman as running mate to sort of compensate for this clear ideological gap, he chose “a running mate much more ideologically in tune with him than with the party.” I then added: “Worse still, his running mate is a fundamentalist garbed in capitalist gear. A man who proposes the killing of fellow citizens who have a sexual orientation different from his cannot be anything but a fundamentalist. Of course, Obi chose him because he thinks he’s a prominent name from the far North whose conservative credentials will help bring in the votes in that region….”
What we are seeing now are the chickens coming home to roost. I don’t know those advising Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, but this press release is the worst case he could possibly make for himself. If you want to take your internal party matter outside and you want to do it in this unclear way, it is even worse than simply mentioning names clearly and stating your case. Sure, it’s something you’d probably suffer for in the hands of some of the party faithful, but your candour and honesty will rescue you amongst some members of the party, party sympathisers and independents if you are on the ticket. For instance, Nyesom Wike is likely to suffer that kind of pushback in the PDP from a huge section of the party faithful when he finally makes his threat of saying what he says is the truth against Atiku Abubakar because everyone can see that he’s just smarting from his loss of both the presidential ticket and the position of Atiku’s running mate. He can’t do much damage to the PDP in the presidential poll. He will mostly damage the chances of his own people within the party wherever they are on the ballot. But, he will come out better than Yusuf Datti-Ahmed because even though it’s a senseless fight, Wike is not known to fight cowardly and, at any rate, he himself is not on the ballot.
For his own good, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed should not get into this type of drama. Doing this only damages him, the presidential candidate and the Labour Party brand. No matter the internal differences within the Labour Party and the strategy adopted by the contending parties, fair or unfair, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed should not be the one making this type of useless case and signing his name to it. If there is a real issue internally within the Labour Party that he thinks needs his voice to clarify in public space, he must be clear about the issue and the objective he wants to achieve by going public. At all times, his objective must be to unify the party, not wail about the private pains he himself has suffered from some elements of the party he’s seeking to unite. The most important thing is that he has been chosen as the running mate and Obi does not look like he is unhappy with him. So, why get into a public argument with a group of nameless party persons about that?
I think this is a Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed own goal. Not sure how this will affect the ticket, but it certainly isn’t a good look for the Labour Party.
Kennedy Emetulu is a Nigerian public affairs analyst and commentator
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