The popular saying, “pictures tell a thousand words” summarily sums up the importance of a picture to the photographer and to the personae in the picture, as it tells a story without a pen – Ty Bello and Olajumoke might be able to tell the story better.

Important events that happened centuries ago are still being reckoned with today through pictures, that’s the reason pictures have moved from ordinary images to messages. The messages come in a good or a bad way.

On Saturday, October 21, 2017, a picture circulated on the social media which tells a bad tale. In this picture was former Governor of Anambra, Mr Peter Obi in a market at the state capital – Awka – campaigning for the PDP candidate in the state, Mr Oseloka Obaze. While the campaign was going on, he was pictured sharing money to some market women and the numbers gradually increased from one to many but, he was eventually mobbed.

The message is simple and direct: He was sharing the money to win their hearts for the PDP Governorship candidate in the November election as it has been the norm with Nigerian politicians. However, the displeasure with this image comes from the fact that Peter Obi has moved from the list of politicians with zero future with one that has won the hearts of many after leaving office with many seeing him as a Presidential material.

He has moved from one forum to another demanding good governance for the masses and agitating for a cost-effective means of governance. From his resounding performance at the 2016 Edition of Platform (a nation-building program organised annually by Covenant Christian Centre, Lagos on October 1st) that broke the internet, he has continually agitated for a better form of democracy in the country. He was a guest on a radio program anchored by Mr Jimi Disu in Lagos a few months ago. For one hour, Peter Obi was interviewed and, his submission on National issues could not but win the hearts of many.

Part of his constant demand in his speech and presentation is youth inclusiveness in politics and the demand to make political office less attractive which has been the bane of our democracy since 1999. However, the circulated Pictures tells another story which can be summarily described as “do as I say not do as I do“.

The way he was mobbed in the picture painted a picture of a rich man among a million paupers. He couldn’t share more than two hundred naira notes to each individual and they all struggled to have it. This has shown the level of poverty in the state and a question on his achievements in office. For someone that claimed to have left the state better than he met it, how did things got so bad in less than four years after his exit that the same people he claimed to have bettered their lives now swarm around him to collect Two Hundred Naira (N200)!

The picture tells a tale that placed a question mark on Peter Obi’s growing profile among Nigerians especially the youth and his principles.

Editor