What has gone wrong with Obidient Movement ?
This is the question begging for an honest and courageous answer. If we can answer it sincerely, the Obidient family may yet rise again with renewed strength and purpose. If we fail to confront it, however, the Obidient Movement risks gradually drifting into ineffectiveness and dormancy, remembered more for its historic momentum than for sustained political impact.
At the heart of the matter lies a fundamental organisational challenge: structure. The current over-centralized configuration of the Obidient Movement appears to be constraining, rather than energising, the very grassroots energy that once propelled His Excellency Peter Obi’s support base into a formidable national force. What began as a vibrant, organic, citizen-driven movement, fluid, adaptive, and participatory, now risks becoming administratively rigid and strategically slowed.
Organisational theorists have long warned about this paradox. Max Weber, in his theory of bureaucracy, acknowledged that structure brings order and coordination, but he also cautioned that excessive centralisation can create an “iron cage,” where rules and hierarchy suffocate initiative and creativity. When decision-making becomes concentrated at the centre, innovation at the periphery weakens. The system begins to preserve itself rather than advance its mission.
Similarly, Henry Mintzberg’s organisational structure theory explains that movements driven by innovation and mobilisation thrive under decentralized or “adhocracy” models—structures that allow flexibility, rapid response, and distributed leadership. According to Mintzberg, overly centralized systems struggle in dynamic environments because they cannot respond quickly to local realities. Political movements, by their very nature, require adaptability; they grow through participation, not permission.
The early Obidient Movement succeeded precisely because it operated as what Peter Drucker described as a “mission-driven network” rather than a command-driven hierarchy. Individuals across Nigeria and the diaspora mobilised independently yet united by shared values, transparency, competence, and national renewal. It was not bureaucracy that built the movement; it was belief. Not hierarchy, but ownership.
Today, however, many supporters perceive a widening gap between leadership structures and grassroots participation. When initiative must wait for approval, momentum slows. When voices at the base feel unheard, enthusiasm fades. And when a movement that once thrived on collective agency becomes tightly controlled, participation gradually transforms into spectatorship.
This is not merely a political observation; it is an organisational law. Burns and Stalker’s contingency theory distinguishes between mechanistic structures, centralized, rigid, and suited for stable environments, and organic structures, which are decentralized, collaborative, and suited for changing environments. Political movements operate in highly fluid environments; applying mechanistic structures to organic movements often produces stagnation.
The Obidient Movement was born organic. Attempting to govern it mechanistically risks disconnecting it from its original source of power, the people.
History shows that movements decline not only because of external opposition but because of internal structural misalignment. As sociologist Robert Michels observed in his “Iron Law of Oligarchy,” organisations tend naturally toward concentration of power unless deliberate mechanisms preserve participation and accountability. Without conscious correction, leadership consolidation can unintentionally distance a movement from its base.
Therefore, the question before the Obidient family is not about loyalty, personalities, or even ideology, it is about design. How should a citizen movement structure itself to sustain energy beyond an election cycle? How can coordination exist without suffocation? How can leadership guide without silencing initiative?
The answer may lie in reimagining the movement as a federated and participatory network, one that empowers local structures, encourages autonomous initiatives aligned with shared values, and institutionalises feedback between leadership and grassroots supporters. A movement that listens expands; a movement that centralizes excessively contracts.
The Obidient Movement once demonstrated that political awakening in Nigeria could be citizen-led, value-driven, and technologically enabled. That spirit has not disappeared; it is merely waiting for organisational space to breathe again.
If this structural question is addressed with honesty and courage, the Obidient family can rise, not as a memory of past enthusiasm, but as a renewed democratic force. But if ignored, inertia may quietly replace inspiration.
Movements do not fade because people stop believing; they fade when structures stop allowing people to belong.
The moment therefore calls not for blame, but for organisational reflection, because the future of the movement may depend less on rhetoric and more on redesign.
