-By Abdul Mahmud
What does one say to citizens who already live each day under the heavy weight of Nigeria’s iniquitous politics, who do not need lectures but only clarity, and who have learned from experience that power rarely yields to persuasion but often bends institutions until they begin to resemble instruments of private will rather than guardians of the public trust. The question is not whether the citizens understand what is happening around them, because they do, but whether those who wield power recognise the limits of force dressed up as governance and control disguised as order.
In recent months, the political atmosphere has grown tense with a certain familiarity, one that echoes through Africa’s history of ruling parties that are confronted with the possibility of genuine opposition, only to retreat into a repertoire of tactics that range from subtle delegitimisation to overt suppression. External forces are hired to scatter opposition parties, Speeches are twisted into mischief, rhetorical irony is deliberately misread as error, and what is clearly a denunciation is conveniently recast as an own goal.
This distortion is not accidental. It is part of a broader strategy to define the narrative before the electorate can do so for itself.
The controversy surrounding calls for unity within the opposition and the ironic invitation to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to resign and join that opposition is a case in point. The speech, delivered by a young opposition turk, Serah Ibrahim, at the just concluded opposition summit of the ADC, rests on two straightforward premises that are neither obscure nor ambiguous. It is first an appeal for coherence among fragmented opposition forces that have historically lost elections not only because of state power but also because of their own disunity. It is second a rhetorical device, an irony sharpened into political speech, that mocks failure and exposes the contradictions of incumbency. In the grammar of politics, such speech is properly called denunciation. It is neither confusion nor self sabotage. It is a deliberate act of political communication aimed at framing the stakes of a contest.
The response from some quarters, however, reveals a deeper problem that has long haunted Nigeria’s political life. There is an arrogance that sometimes cloaks itself in the language of civilisational mission, a modern echo of the old idea of mission civilisatrice, which presumes that power not only governs but also instructs, corrects, and defines the limits of acceptable dissent. This arrogance is not new. It reveals itself whenever those in power begin to treat opposition not as a legitimate feature of democracy but as a nuisance to be subdued, and in the current moment it finds expression in the disposition of the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which appears increasingly inclined to weaken, fragment, and delegitimise its challengers rather than engage them within the fair and open arena that democracy demands.
History offers cautionary parallels.
In Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah, the promise of liberation gradually yielded to the consolidation of power, and the space for opposition narrowed until the state and the ruling party became indistinguishable. Laws were crafted in the name of stability, dissent was framed as subversion, and the moral authority of independence was invoked to justify the erosion of pluralism. Nkrumah did not begin as an autocrat. He became one through a series of decisions that each appeared defensible in isolation but together produced a political order that could no longer tolerate meaningful opposition. The comparison is not made lightly, nor is it intended as a crude equivalence, but it is necessary because it illuminates a pattern. When a government begins to see opposition not as a legitimate competitor but as an existential threat, it shifts from persuasion to control. Institutions that are meant to arbitrate fairly are gradually drawn into the orbit of power. Electoral bodies, courts, and regulatory agencies find themselves under subtle or overt pressure to act in ways that favour incumbency while maintaining the appearance of neutrality.
Across the continent, this pattern has taken different forms. In some places, opposition parties have been weakened through legal restrictions and administrative hurdles. In others, their leaders have been disqualified on technical grounds that mask political intent. The effect is often the same, which is to narrow the field of competition until elections become rituals rather than contests. The language of law is preserved, but its spirit is hollowed out.
Nigeria now stands at a delicate moment.
The ruling party has deployed a wide range of political tools to contain and fragment the opposition. Opposition politicians are arrested, alliances are disrupted, narratives are managed, and dissenting voices are subjected to scrutiny that often exceeds the bounds of fairness. These efforts may yield short-term advantages, but they carry long-term risks. Presidential power that exhausts itself in the attempt to eliminate opposition often ends up weakening the very institutions that sustain its legitimacy.
There is a growing sense that the next phase of this contest may not be fought solely in the arena of public persuasion but in the corridors where rules are interpreted and enforced. The emergence of a unified opposition platform, particularly under the banner of the African Democratic Congress, has introduced a new variable into the equation. If such a platform succeeds in producing a credible presidential candidate who can galvanise public support, the temptation to neutralise that candidacy through institutional means may prove strong. It is here that one must speak, not as a partisan, but as an observer of patterns, almost as an oracle peering into a crystal ball clouded by history but illuminated by precedent. The signs suggest a trajectory that is both familiar and troubling. When all other strategies have been deployed and the opposition remains resilient, the focus often shifts to the gatekeepers of the electoral process. Technicalities become decisive. Compliance becomes selective. Legality becomes a weapon rather than a shield.
If this trajectory continues unchecked, one foresees a scenario in which the candidate that emerges from the opposition ranks under the African Democratic Congress faces not only political contestation but also institutional challenge of a magnitude that effectively removes him or her from the ballot. The justification will be couched in the language of law. The effect will be unmistakably political. The outcome will be an election that proceeds with the form of competition but without its substance.
Such a development would not merely be a setback for the opposition. It would be a test of Nigeria’s democratic resilience. It would raise fundamental questions about the independence of the electoral umpire and the integrity of the processes that underpin the transfer of power. It would also remind Nigerians that democracy is not sustained by elections alone but by the conditions that make those elections meaningful. Power has a way of revealing itself most clearly at the moment it believes it has nothing left to prove. When it has exhausted persuasion, it turns to compulsion. When it has exhausted argument, it turns to authority. The challenge for Nigeria is to ensure that this moment, if it comes, does not define its future. The people already understand the stakes. The question is whether those who govern will recognise that the strength of a democracy lies not in the weakness of its opposition but in its ability to withstand it.