The man,
the myth,
the legend

He reads Philosophy at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, graduating in 1984. As an undergraduate he is already travelling to London to import goods and owns a Peugeot 504.

He buys his first house in London without a mortgage and begins investing in the stock market, according to his long-time aide Valentine Obienyem.

He marries Margaret Brownson Usen. They have two children, Gabriella Nwamaka Frances and Gregory Peter Oseloka.

Next International (UK) Limited is incorporated with Obi and his wife as directors. The Next companies import and distribute brands such as Heinz and Ovaltine across West Africa. “I was a big trader,” he says.

INEC declares Chris Ngige of the PDP the winner. Obi goes to the tribunal. It will take three years.

The Court of Appeal in Enugu upholds the 2005 tribunal ruling that the 2003 election was wrongly declared. Two days later he takes the oath of office.

Lawmakers convene at about half past five in the morning under police guard and vote him out. Deputy Governor Virginia Etiaba becomes Nigeria’s first female state governor.

The court rules the impeachment unconstitutional. Etiaba hands power back.

Led by Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, the Supreme Court holds that a governor’s four years run from the day of the oath. Andy Uba, sworn in seventeen days earlier after an election Obi did not contest, is ordered to vacate. The ruling creates Nigeria’s off-cycle elections.

Eighteen secondary schools are handed back to the churches that founded them. In November 2011 the policy extends to 1,040 primary schools, with a six billion naira grant.

He wins a second term with 97,843 votes in a field of twenty-five, ahead of Chris Ngige and Chukwuma Soludo.

President Goodluck Jonathan confers the national honour of CON.

The Intafact brewery, a greenfield investment of more than a hundred million dollars, is commissioned. The state takes a stake of about two billion naira.

Eight years to the day after his oath, he leaves office. That morning the state’s traditional rulers name him Okwute, the Rock, of Igboland.

Citing vote buying in the primaries, he walks away from the PDP and, six days later, wins the Labour Party ticket in Asaba. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed joins him in July. The people who follow call themselves Obidients.

Volunteer marches fill Makurdi, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Enugu and, on Independence Day, Lagos. Nobody is bussed in. “We are the structure,” the banners say.

In London he sets out a programme to move Nigeria from consumption to production. “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”

A party that had never won a state takes Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory and ten more states. INEC places him third with 6,101,533 votes.