He thought he was clever by half. He cowardly created problems to destroy opposition parties for his tall ambition of remaining an Aso Rock Villa tenant beyond his welcome. Frightened, threatened and greedy State Governors hurriedly abandoned the parties that brought them to power to his party, today, the story is changing. He is becoming restless, confused and uncertain. He is no longer claiming to be a stubborn politician but a lame duck hooked in the mud.
Although, it might have escaped the memory of opposition parties that their insistence of contesting the coming presidential election on their separate platforms, is to the advantage of the much hated ruling party All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu. They have to bury their differences to save Nigeria from the hands of kleptomaniac.
Tinubu along with his troops and hired mercenaries the likes of Wike, Nafi’u Gombe and few clowns are all out to muzzle life out of opposition for desperation of return to power. Opposition should know that, and prepare super counter to save Nigeria from fallen back to the dirty hands of senseless kleptomaniac and kakistocrats.
In Nigeria, opposition politics is too demanding, difficult and cumbersome, particularly if it involves confronting diehard, heartless power mongers that knows God only by name not by worship. In our brand of system, politics is fast becoming a business for self interest rather than national patriotism, and the parties do not necessarily differ significantly on ideologies.
The ruling APC, with its control of almost all the institutions of power, its greater access to, the traditional media coupled with its ability, to use such media, to deploy propaganda against the opposition, to distort their words, ideas, and to define the opposition before the opposition defines itself.
In democratic politics where the game is played according to the rules, a strong opposition is not an enemy of democracy. On the contrary, it is one of democracy’s most important safeguards. A credible opposition scrutinizes government policies and challenges abuse of power, presents alternative programmes, and gives voters meaningful choices at elections. When opposition parties become excessively fragmented, the electorate may be left with several competing anti-government candidates rather than one credible alternative capable of challenging the incumbent.
The greatest advantage of an incumbent from a divided opposition is not necessarily the destruction of opposition parties. It can simply be the multiplication of them. If voters who are dissatisfied with the government divide their votes among opposition candidates, the incumbent may win without necessarily enjoying overwhelming popular support.
This is not merely theoretical. Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election demonstrated how votes could be distributed among major contestants. In 2023, according to INEC, out of a total of 24,025,940 valid votes, Bola Tinubu of the APC had 8,794,726 votes (36.61%), Atiku Abubakar of PDP had 6,984,520 votes (29.07%), against those of Peter Gregory Obi of LP who scored 6,101,533 votes (25.40%). Others had about a total of 2,145,161 votes making it 9% of the total votes cast. It is crystal clear that the Atiku and Obi votes amounted to 13,086,063 (54.5%). If opposition had come together in 2023, they could have scored 15,231,214 votes (63.4%) as against Tinubu’s paltry 8,794,726 votes (36.61%). This would have meant a landslide victory for the opposition.
However, because opposition parties were divided against each other, Tinubu was declared winner in the wee hours of morning by ‘compromised’ Prof Mahmoud Yakubu when most Nigerians were still in bed with minority votes. For doing the disservice to Nigerians, Tinubu rewarded Yakubu with an ambassadorial appointment.
Yakubu as an academician that was expected to be patriotic, but for pecuniary interest, chose to exit public office with a dented record of inconclusive elections, and heavily bastardized reputation.
Nigeria’s democracy is entering another critical phase as the country approaches the 2027 general elections. While political parties and candidates prepare for another contest for power, one feature of the emerging political landscape is particularly striking: the ruling party continues to consolidate its political intimidation and beastly manipulation of opposition out of fear of the obvious despite its several claims of leading the majority.
This raises an important question: is Nigeria witnessing a situation in which opposition to the ruling party is being weakened not merely by its own internal contradictions, but also by political strategies that encourage opposition forces to fight among themselves?
Whatever may be anyone’s opinion on this, what can reasonably be argued is that a politically sophisticated incumbent has an incentive to exploit divisions within its opponents. That exploitation can take many forms; welcoming already frightened and threatened defectors and providing governmental shield for them even when they defected as arranged in contravention of the law, negotiating with influential politicians, encouraging political realignments, building alliances with governors and lawmakers, and taking advantage of disagreements among opposition leaders.
Opposition leaders and parties were aware of the danger of opposition working against opposition, smarting from their experience of the 2023 presidential election.
Atiku Abubakar, who was declared first runner up in the 2023 presidential election, took the lead in arranging a meeting of all contesting leading opposition candidates. Eventually, he succeeded as those opposition leaders, including himself, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, and eventually Rabi’u Kwankwaso came together and adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the coalition party to confront APC and their Tinubu in 2027.
The effect of the unity among opposition forces was electric and threatened the basis on which APC predicated its victory in 2027. APC knows it has no reliable performance base to rely upon for reelection anywhere, but is relying heavily on the disunity it created among opposition parties, and conniving with INEC to rig. Seeing that opposition had come together and removed the only obstacle to their victory, APC became frantic, jittery and too desperate. It had to do something urgent to convince itself.
There’s no doubt that APC, under Tinubu has performed terribly beyond imagination. Tinubu’s hurried removal of fuel subsidy from his first day in office without any concrete plan to cushion the effect of the removal on poor Nigerians and his subsequent devaluation of the naira makes life completely unbearable.
Nigerians are paying N1,500 per litre of petrol in a country that exchanges N1,400 for a dollar. Tinubu inherited fuel price of N195 per litre, and the naira at N450 per dollar. This ill-thought out plan strangled the economy, with transportation and feeding costs unaffordable to Nigerians. More than 145 million Nigerians are wallowing in multidimensional poverty and seven million more Nigerians are added to the list daily.
To worsen Tinubu’s woes, his promise that the revenue he will save from the subsidy removal would be ploughed back to Nigerian people in the form of public infrastructures like security, electricity, roads, education, healthcare and so on has failed woefully. Tinubu ran in first term on the assurance that he would provide steady electricity, and even confidently appealed to Nigerians not to vote for him if he fails to redeem the promise. His regime has so far witnessed the highest number of national grid collapse per year in Nigeria’s history, with the result that there’s no electricity in Nigeria.
To make matters worse, Nigerians are divided into Bands A, B, C and so on, with the consequence of creating a caste system in electricity use where the poor are denied electricity in favor of the rich who can afford the high bill.
All major federal roads in Nigeria are either impassible, dilapidated, or have failed portions forcing Nigerians to use bush paths to circumvent the obstacles of bad roads,
Bauchi-Gombe, Gombe to Jimeta, Jos- Akwanga, Wase-Langtang, Jos-Kaduna, Jebba-Mokwa-Tegina-Kagara, Maiduguri-Damboa-Biu; Maiduguri-Damaturu, Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano expressway and several others are too dilapidated. Nigeria is simply not working under Tinubu.
Insecurity is worst under Tinubu’s watch. It is a daily occurrence for people to be kidnapped for ransom, robbed, or killed. More than 500 innocent villagers were recently kidnapped in Niger State without stress or confrontation by security agencies and marched like goats into the bush for extortion until ransom is paid, and no officer is held responsible for the lapse.
It is obvious that Tinubu stands no chance by his performance to be reelected by responsible Nigerians unless by those looters busy looting what should be deployed to the development of Nigeria under his watch. His only choice is to scatter opposition parties and destroy them to reap from the criminality caused by fear.
His Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, was clear that the Tinubu administration is determined to support the renegades of any contending opposition party to destroy their party. APC started the strategic attack on opposition parties through legislation and failed. It tried litigation and failed. Its only choice now is to instigate division among opposition parties.
As of 2025, opposition was still operating together. Hitherto, INEC vehemently refused to register any new political party for unstated and unconvincing reason. From nowhere on December 10, 2025, news broke out that the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) had obtained a Court order compelling INEC to register it. NDC, according to reports, had been seeking registration since 2018 but not deemed qualified to be registered by Prof Mahmoud Yakubu. The allegation then was that NDC was registered to be used to lure Peter Obi out of the coalition with an offer of free presidential ticket.
Obviously, Peter Obi fell for the Tinubu trap, because on May 3, 2026, he defected from ADC for the NDC, after assuring the world that he would contest under ADC. According to Ayo Fayose, on the day Obi left ADC, he lost the election. This is a revelation that NDC was a scheme to divide opposition and turn opposition against opposition but not to provide any opportunity for Peter Obi to win. The NDC was deregistered by the same Court that ordered its registration earlier after the primaries were concluded. As at today, except the Court of Appeal decrees otherwise, NDC is not qualified to contest the 2027 general elections. Quote me anywhere!
The coalition had been formed. There is only one presidential candidate for the coalition, who is Atiku Abubakar. In the eyes of the law, he is the only major opposition contestant for 2027. The only reasonable choice now in the polity is for all the opposition parties and leaders to support the candidature of Atiku to secure the 63.4% votes that opposition assembled in 2023.
Opposition must reject the manipulation of APC in which they contend against each other. Atiku had halted opposition debating itself in 2027. Opposition should take the cue and forbid their voting against each other.
However, the 2026 concluded Osun State election proved that when opposition leaders, who stand no chance to win, refuse to support the major contender, it may make it more difficult, but not impossible for the major contender to win. The people of Nigeria must not waste their votes in 2027 voting ineptitude and cluelessness but must vote for the coalition ADC. Any political party or major politician not in ADC fold is a willing tool of APC to return Tinubu to power against the progress and safety of Nigeria. Do not say I did not tell you!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
