In the classical architecture of democratic theory, widespread public hardship carries a swift and predictable political penalty. When an administration presides over soaring food prices, a battered currency, energy price shocks and persistent insecurity, the conventional expectation is that the electorate will eventually channel its suffering into votes against the incumbent. Yet, as Nigeria approaches another general election, an unsettling question confronts the country: can a president whose policies have generated widespread public dissatisfaction still possess a viable path to retaining power?
To understand Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political prospects, one must distinguish between the public’s judgment of a government and the political machinery required to replace it. These are related, but they are not the same thing. A government may lose public affection without losing the networks that sustain its political position. Citizens may become increasingly dissatisfied without agreeing on a successor. An incumbent may face widespread anger without confronting an opposition capable of converting that anger into an electoral majority.
Public sentiment is an emotion, elections are an exercise in organizational logistics. The distinction is not an argument that citizens’ opinions do not matter. It is an explanation of why those opinions, however strongly held, do not always produce the political outcome that observers expect.
The primary analytical error in much of the debate about Tinubu’s political future is the assumption that he must govern through popular affection. Nigerian politics has never been that simple. Political survival depends not only on what citizens think of a president but also on the organization of the parties, the ambitions of political elites, the alliances between federal and state power, the credibility of rival candidates and the ability to mobilize voters when it matters.
Tinubu’s long experience in party politics gives him an advantage in understanding these calculations. His political strength has never rested exclusively on winning a popularity contest. It has also rested on cultivating alliances, building networks and understanding that political power must be assembled, maintained and defended. His opponents should take that experience seriously without treating it as evidence that he cannot be defeated.
The principal protection available to an incumbent facing widespread dissatisfaction is often not public enthusiasm for his record, but the failure of his opponents to present a convincing alternative. If the electorate is angry with the government but divided over who should replace it, the incumbent retains an opportunity that a united opposition might have substantially reduced.
That is the opening through which Tinubu could survive politically. It is not a guarantee of victory, but it is an advantage his opponents cannot afford to ignore.
The opposition’s greatest vulnerability is the temptation to confuse agreement about the country’s problems with agreement about the country’s next president.
In 2023, Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes, against 6,984,520 for Atiku Abubakar and 6,101,533 for Peter Obi. Rabiu Kwankwaso received 1,496,687 votes. The combined totals of these three principal challengers exceeded Tinubu’s vote by a considerable margin, but the votes were distributed among separate candidacies.
Those figures do not prove that Tinubu would have lost if the opposition had united. Votes are not transferable possessions. A supporter of one candidate may refuse to support another; a coalition may alienate voters who prefer the independence of their party; and a candidate who attracts a large following in one region may struggle to reproduce that appeal elsewhere. Nevertheless, the figures demonstrate why opposition coordination matters.
A divided opposition can give an incumbent room to win without commanding majority enthusiasm. A united opposition, if it is credible and capable of mobilizing its supporters, can make the same contest considerably more difficult.
The challenge is that political unity is often proclaimed most loudly by those least prepared to pay its price. Leaders speak of national rescue, democratic renewal and the need to defeat the ruling party, but the negotiations become more complicated when somebody must surrender a presidential ambition, accept a running mate from another political tradition, share influence or trust a former rival with a role in the new arrangement.
The public hears the appeal for unity. Behind closed doors, the politicians must decide who will lead, who will follow and who will accept less than they believe they deserve.
That is where noble declarations meet political reality.
A coalition cannot be built merely by adding the names of popular politicians to a joint statement. It must settle the questions that can destroy it: who is the candidate, what programme binds the partners together, how will disagreements be resolved, and what assurances can each group offer its supporters that the alliance will survive beyond the announcement?
It must also establish a national organization capable of doing the unglamorous work of campaigning, voter registration awareness, lawful mobilization, polling-unit coordination and the protection of electoral rights. A movement that can fill a rally or dominate online discussion has not necessarily demonstrated that it can reach voters across the country and turn their preferences into ballots.
Tinubu does not need the opposition to remain divided forever. He needs only for its leaders to fail to resolve their differences in time to mount an effective challenge. That is a much less demanding proposition than persuading an angry electorate that the government has performed well.
The other advantage available to Tinubu is the political weight of the presidency in a federation where state governments depend heavily on revenue distributed through the Federation Account.
The removal of the petrol subsidy and changes to the foreign-exchange regime altered the fiscal environment in which federal and state governments operate. Increased nominal allocations have given many subnational governments access to larger sums than they previously received. But inflation, exchange-rate movements, rising costs and differences in state revenue obligations make it necessary to distinguish between receiving more naira and possessing proportionately greater purchasing power.
Even with that qualification, money matters in politics. Governments need resources to pay workers, maintain services, finance projects and respond to demands from their constituencies. Political officeholders also operate within networks of supporters, party officials and local influencers who expect attention, assistance or opportunities. Greater access to public resources can strengthen a governor’s capacity to manage these relationships.
This creates a potential advantage for the president whose party controls the federal government and whose political interests overlap with those of governors and other influential officeholders.
But it would be too easy to conclude that higher allocations have purchased the loyalty of every governor or secured their territories for Tinubu. Governors have their own ambitions. Some may have presidential or national political calculations of their own; others may be more concerned with succession within their states, the survival of their political factions or their relationships with competing party leaders. Federal and state interests can align, but they can also collide.
Nor does a governor’s political influence mean that every voter in the state will follow the governor’s preference. Nigerians are not entries in a party register waiting to be transferred from one candidate to another. They can resist pressure, change their minds, reject a party or abstain from voting altogether.
The more important point is that incumbency gives Tinubu a network of relationships and resources that a challenger must confront with organization of comparable reach. The opposition cannot expect to defeat that network simply by pointing to the hardship that citizens experience.
The governing party has a structure. The opposition must build a credible one.
Economic hardship can produce political anger, but it can also consume the time, energy and resources people need to participate in politics.
A person struggling to pay rent, find transport money, feed a family or keep a small business afloat may have little patience for party negotiations. Someone who has watched successive governments disappoint them may conclude that voting will change nothing. Others may want to vote but face practical barriers, including insecurity, distance from polling units or difficulties associated with the electoral process.
These are different experiences, and they should not all be described as deliberate voter suppression. But they can produce a common consequence: citizens dissatisfied with the government may fail to translate that dissatisfaction into votes.
Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election illustrates the scale of the problem. INEC’s register contained 93,469,008 voters, while the election produced approximately 24 million valid votes. The difference does not mean that every person who did not cast a valid vote deliberately abstained; it does show how misleading it would be to treat the entire registered electorate as a bloc that can be mobilized simply by expressing anger.
This is one reason the opposition must resist the temptation to measure its strength by applause, trending hashtags or the intensity of criticism directed at the government. Public conversation can reveal dissatisfaction, but it cannot substitute for evidence of electoral participation.
There is, however, another side to the argument. Apathy is not necessarily permanent. A credible candidate, a convincing programme, confidence in the electoral process and a campaign that reaches people beyond the usual political audience can persuade some disillusioned citizens to participate. A divided electorate can become more coordinated; a disengaged voter can become an active supporter.
The challenge is to make that transformation happen lawfully and credibly, rather than assume it will occur automatically because the public is suffering.
And the responsibility belongs to more than the voters. Political parties and electoral institutions must make participation meaningful, accessible and trustworthy. Citizens should not be asked to carry the entire burden of democratic renewal while political leaders offer them little beyond another promise of salvation.
There is a distinction between winning an election and persuading the country that one has governed well. Tinubu can remain electorally competitive even if a substantial number of Nigerians disapprove of his performance. Conversely, widespread dissatisfaction does not establish that the opposition has earned the confidence required to govern.
The available polling illustrates why precision matters. OpenPolls Africa’s published compilation includes a May 2026 survey reporting 30.2 per cent approval and 47.5 per cent disapproval of Tinubu, but the pollster did not publish the sample size, fieldwork dates or margin of error. Those limitations make the figures useful as a possible indication of public sentiment, not a definitive measurement of the entire electorate.
A serious political argument must resist the temptation to turn an uncertain measure of public opinion into a settled forecast. Tinubu’s popularity, the strength of his party, the performance of his administration and his chances of re-election are related questions, but they are not interchangeable.
Some Nigerians may reject his economic policies but distrust the opposition. Others may acknowledge the hardship while believing the reforms are necessary. Some may remain loyal to the APC for reasons that have little to do with the president’s performance. Still others may want a change of government but disagree over which candidate deserves their support.
This is the complication that neither the government nor its opponents should ignore. Citizens do not vote on a single question, and a country cannot be reduced to two camps, one applauding Tinubu and the other demanding his removal.
Yet the government cannot hide behind this complexity. Its record remains open to judgment. If citizens are struggling to afford food, transport, housing and electricity, the administration must explain what its policies have achieved, who has benefited and when the relief promised by economic reform will become tangible. The argument that difficult policies may eventually produce benefits cannot exempt the government from accounting for the hardship being experienced now.
A government may have reasons for pursuing a policy. It must still answer for the consequences.
If Tinubu’s opponents want to convert dissatisfaction into electoral power, they must offer something more substantial than a shared determination to remove him.
They must tell Nigerians what they would do about the cost of living, how they would improve security, where the money for their promises would come from and how they would create jobs without making commitments the public treasury cannot sustain. They must explain which policies they would retain, which they would change and how they would prevent the country from paying repeatedly for abrupt reversals of government direction.
They must also demonstrate that their coalition can survive the responsibilities of governing. An alliance that cannot settle its candidate without a crisis, distribute responsibilities without recriminations or agree on a basic policy programme before an election will struggle to convince voters that it can manage a country as complicated as Nigeria.
Defeating an incumbent is an electoral objective. Governing successfully is a national responsibility. The two require different kinds of preparation.
The opposition should therefore begin with the voters rather than the ambitions of its leaders. It should identify the problems people most urgently want solved, develop policies that can withstand scrutiny, build a credible presence across the country and negotiate its alliances around a programme that extends beyond the next election. It should prepare to protect the integrity of the vote, respect the electoral rules and accept that democratic legitimacy depends on more than the declaration of victory.
Above all, its leaders must understand that a coalition is not an instrument for dividing the spoils before the contest has been won. It is an agreement to pursue a common public purpose despite differences that will not disappear merely because the parties have agreed to campaign together.
If they cannot make that agreement work, they should not expect public anger to do the work for them.
Tinubu’s political advantages are substantial, but they are not invincible. His opponents’ difficulties are serious, but they are not permanent. The government may benefit from incumbency, political alliances and a divided opposition; it may also face the consequences of economic hardship, disappointed expectations and the possibility that dissatisfied citizens will find a credible alternative.
The outcome will depend on developments that cannot responsibly be settled in advance: the candidates who emerge, the coalitions they build, the programmes they present, the way voters respond to the government’s record, the level of participation and the credibility of the electoral process.
That is why it would be premature to declare Tinubu unbeatable, just as it would be naive to assume that public dissatisfaction alone will remove him.
The real question is whether Nigeria’s opposition can transform a widespread sense of disappointment into a coherent democratic choice. Can its leaders put aside enough of their personal ambitions to agree on a candidate? Can they persuade voters beyond their established strongholds?
Can they offer a programme that addresses the country’s difficulties without relying on slogans? Can they organize effectively enough to ensure that those who want change actually participate in the election?
These questions are more consequential than the volume of denunciations directed at the president. They concern the practical work through which democratic alternatives are made possible.
Governments govern in macroeconomic trajectories, but citizens live in daily arithmetic. They measure the economy in the food they can afford, the journeys they can make, the bills they can pay and the money remaining when the necessities of life have taken their share. Those experiences will shape the public’s judgment of Tinubu, whatever the government says about its achievements.
But the opposition must do more than wait for that judgment to turn against him. It must give the judgment somewhere to go.
An angry nation does not automatically produce a winning opposition. It produces an opportunity. Whether that opportunity becomes a change of government depends on what political leaders build before Nigerians arrive at the ballot box.
Tinubu does not need universal approval to remain competitive. His opponents do not need universal agreement to defeat him. What they need is the capacity to assemble a credible majority under the rules of a free and fair election.
If the opposition fails to build that capacity, the president may survive a level of public dissatisfaction that would ordinarily seem politically dangerous. If it succeeds, his experience, alliances and advantages of incumbency may prove insufficient.
The ultimate judgment belongs to the Nigerian people. But before they can deliver it, those who seek their mandate must demonstrate that they are prepared to do more than inherit their anger.
They must prove that they can turn it into a credible alternative and that they are ready to govern the country it wants to change.
Stephanie Shaakaa shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
08034861434
