Obidient Movement Should Not Have Been Named After Peter Obi, Kenneth Okonkwo Says

The Obidient Movement should never have carried Peter Obi’s name, according to Kenneth Okonkwo, a former spokesperson for Obi’s 2023 presidential campaign.

Speaking on the Selah Meditate Podcast, Okonkwo said the movement grew organically from young Nigerians searching for a better country. In his view, it should have remained a movement for a better Nigeria rather than adopting the name of one politician.

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This was an organization that grew organically. It should have been left organically without putting any name tag on it. It should have just been left as movement for a better Nigeria or something without attaching a name to it.

“This was an organization that grew organically. It should have been left organically without putting any name tag on it. It should have just been left as movement for a better Nigeria or something without attaching a name to it,” he said.

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Whatever happens to the person’s reputation, it affects their movement.

Okonkwo argued that the movement was broader than Obi and reflected a political awakening that began before the 2023 election. He traced the search for a third political force to 2019, saying supporters later rallied around Obi as a possible symbol during the 2023 campaign.

He called the decision to use Obi’s name a mistake because the movement’s reputation could rise or fall with his. “Whatever happens to the person’s reputation, it affects their movement,” he said. Okonkwo added that he had applied the lesson to his own political project, which he said was called Movement for Good Governance and would not be named after him. “So it will outlive me,” he said.

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I learned from it. My movement now is simply called movement for good governance, and they will never attach my name to it. So it will outlive me.