Nigeria’s presidential election, due to be held on February 25, appears set for a surprising outcome. Several opinion polls rank Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Nigeria’s previously marginal Labour Party, ahead of politicians from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition force, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Obi’s popularity rests at least in part on the young voters who have rallied behind him. These supporters, known as “Obidients,” are an important and social-media savvy segment of the layer aged between 18 and 35 that constitute 42 percent of registered voters, with a strong base in the urban middle classes.

At 61 years of age, Obi himself may not be young, but he appears youthful in contrast to the other leading candidates who slur and stagger. Bola Tinubu of the APC is 70, the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar is 76, while the outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari is 80.

Obi is no novice on the Nigerian political scene, having stood as Atiku’s vice-presidential running-mate in 2019 and served as governor of Anambra state from 2007 to 2014. Yet many of his supporters still perceive him as an alternative to the establishment. The other two candidates are Establishment figures with a capital E.

While Obi is neither a savior or a socialist, the Labour candidate and his Obidents have enlivened the election campaign. They have rekindled optimism about the possibility of change and opened a discussion about the revival of a working-class political alternative. Such optimism has been in short supply over the past decade as social conditions have worsened in Nigeria.