There are words in the Igbo political vocabulary that carry a weight far beyond their literal meaning. “Betrayer” is one of them. So is “saboteur”, popularly shortened to “sabo”.
Their historical resonance is understandable. The Nigerian Civil War left behind deep memories of loyalty, treachery, propaganda and survival. But the danger begins when words born from that history are repurposed to police political loyalty in contemporary Nigeria.
Over the past decade, particularly with the rise of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the language of betrayal and sabotage has sometimes moved beyond political description into social intimidation. The consequences have been devastating.
The controversy surrounding IPOB’s sit-at-home orders is instructive. Human Rights Watch has documented how gunmen enforcing the orders killed, maimed and destroyed the property of people who defied them. Amnesty International’s 2025 report also documented killings and other abuses involving multiple state and non-state actors in the South-East, including violence connected to enforcement of the sit-at-home order.
The lesson should be obvious: once disagreement is redefined as betrayal, coercion can become easier to justify.
That lesson is particularly relevant to contemporary Nigerian politics.
Enter Peter Obi
Peter Obi’s emergence as the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in 2023 produced an extraordinary political movement. He attracted particularly strong support among many young Nigerians and many people in the South-East who claimed they were disillusioned with the established political order.
There was nothing wrong with that enthusiasm.
Indeed, democracy needs passionate citizens. It needs people willing to organise, campaign, defend their candidates and demand better government.
The problem begins when support for a politician becomes a test of ethnic authenticity.
For some of Obi’s most aggressive supporters, disagreement with Obi has sometimes been treated as evidence of hostility towards the Igbo. A person who supports another candidate can be called a “betrayer”, a “sabo”, an enemy of the South-East or someone who does not want the Igbo to prosper.
That is where political mobilisation becomes political bullying.
An Igbo man or woman who supports Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Seyi Makinde or any other politician does not become less Igbo. And an Igbo person who supports Peter Obi does not become more Igbo.
Political preference is not an ethnic certificate.
Yet social media has increasingly become a place where some people appear determined to issue such certificates.
I recently read the reaction to a social-media post by the daughter of Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo. Her post was innocuous — a personal reflection about becoming what she had imagined for herself. But because of the political disagreement between her father and Obi, some commenters descended on her with extraordinarily hostile language.
That episode is revealing.
If a young woman can be subjected to a torrent of abuse simply because her father disagrees politically with a politician, then we have moved beyond ordinary political disagreement. We are witnessing an attempt to punish people for their political associations.
That is precisely the culture Nigerians should reject.
Obi is not a Messiah — and neither was Kanu
There is an uncomfortable parallel worth examining.
Obi’s political project and Nnamdi Kanu’s separatist project are supposedly fundamentally different. Obi has sought political power through Nigeria’s constitutional electoral system; Kanu’s IPOB advocates an independent Biafran state.
They should not be conflated.
Nor should every Obi supporter be described as an IPOB supporter. That would be unfair.
But there is a legitimate concern when many individuals move effortlessly between separatist rhetoric and aggressive partisan politics, carrying the same vocabulary of betrayal, ethnic loyalty and social punishment from one arena into another.
The issue is not who they support.
The issue is the method.
A political movement becomes dangerous when its followers begin to believe that their preferred candidate represents the collective destiny of an ethnic group, and therefore that anyone who disagrees must be an enemy of that group.
That was one of the destructive tendencies that emerged around separatist mobilisation in the South-East.
And the consequences were not theoretical.
Amnesty International reported that at least thousands of people were killed in the South-East between January 2021 and June 2023 amid a wider crisis involving armed groups, criminal actors, security forces and other non-state actors. The organisation also documented violence against people who defied sit-at-home orders. Communities were sacked, police stations burnt and citizens killed and eaten by people who said they were members of IPOB.
The South-East cannot afford to import the psychology of that conflict into ordinary electoral politics.
From persuasion to intimidation
The irony is that a movement built around political renewal can easily undermine the very democratic culture it claims to represent.
Democracy is not the ability to mobilise everyone behind one candidate.
Democracy is the ability to persuade people while accepting that they may still disagree with you.
You can believe Obi is the best candidate Nigeria has produced in decades. You can defend his record. You can attack the policies of his opponents. You can campaign for him from morning till night.
But another Nigerian has exactly the same right to conclude that Tinubu is preferable.
Or Atiku.
Or Makinde.
Or Tamedun.
Or someone else entirely.
Nobody should have to explain his ethnic loyalty because of the way he votes.
And nobody should be threatened with exclusion from his ancestral community because of a presidential preference.
Invoking spiritual punishment against political opponents is particularly troubling. I recently encountered a social-media post in which an Obi supporter invoked Ogun, the Yoruba deity associated with iron, against those who would not support Obi.
Whether such language is intended as humour, provocation or a genuine threat, it should not be normalised. Political disagreement should not be turned into a spiritual or ethnic confrontation.
The responsibility of political movements
Peter Obi cannot control everything said by millions of people who support him. Nor should every offensive comment made by an individual be attributed personally to him.
But influential political movements have a responsibility to establish boundaries.
Support Obi.
Defend Obi.
Campaign for Obi.
Argue that his economic ideas are superior.
Produce evidence that his record is stronger.
Challenge his opponents.
But do not tell an Igbo person that supporting another candidate makes him a traitor.
Do not turn “sabo” into a political weapon.
And do not transform ethnic solidarity into political obedience.
The same applies to every other political movement in Nigeria.
No Nigerian political leader should become a messianic figure whose supporters believe that disagreement with him amounts to betrayal of a people.
Nigeria has had enough of that psychology.
The Igbo have suffered enough from it.
The South-East has experienced enough violence, fear, economic disruption and political division to understand where intolerance can lead. The region needs political competition, not political conformity.
The answer to political disagreement is persuasion.
The answer to a bad argument is a better argument.
The answer to a poor candidate is a stronger candidate.
Not threats.
Not intimidation.
Not ethnic gatekeeping.
And certainly not violence.
The Igbo do not need another political Messiah. Nigeria does not need another Nnamdi Kanu in a different political costume, nor should Peter Obi be elevated into one.
Obi is a politician. Kanu is a separatist leader in prison for terrorism. Neither should become an object of unquestioning communal loyalty.
The future of the Igbo cannot depend on finding one man to speak for everyone.
It should depend on building a society confident enough to accommodate disagreement.
A society where an Igbo man can support Tinubu without being called a traitor.
Where another can support Obi without claiming to speak for every Igbo person.
Where a third can support neither and remain fully entitled to his opinion.
That is what political maturity looks like.
The age of “support us or you are a betrayer” must end.
Political persuasion should be built on ideas, evidence and performance — not fear.
And if the political movement surrounding Peter Obi genuinely represents a new Nigeria, then its most important test is not how many people it can persuade to vote for Obi.
It is whether it can tolerate the Nigerian who chooses not to.