The attack on Peter Obi and other opposition leaders was entirely foreseeable. The opposition must grasp its current predicament and unite to resist. So far, it has remained too aloof , too feeble. It has to take the bull by the horns or thrown in the towel.
In 2023, local opposition parties in Rivers State could barely campaign. Senator Magnus Abe was hunted like a bush rat. Gunmen assaulted opposition campaign trains, maiming and mangling participants. As elections neared, key opposition agents were rounded up by the state’s anti-cultism squad. With the aid of a few notoriously crooked magistrates, they were dumped in prison. Effectively sequestered from the process and leaving their candidates as featherless chickens. On election day, courageous opposition agents who dared resist the rampage were slaughtered in broad daylight. The architects of that mayhem and electoral heist have since ascended to higher callings. Emboldened by impunity and profit, they now vow to unleash even greater magic in 2027. Rumors swirl that the Rivers playbook has been adopted nationwide by players eager to prove unyielding loyalty to the current president at any cost.
Peter Obi and other opposition leaders must read the handwriting on the wall. Unless they confront this looming menace with red-eyed resolve, they will imperil themselves and their vulnerable supporters. If they lack the stomach for the fight, they should throw in the towel early. If caution prevents them from seizing the bull by the horns—perhaps fearing imprisonment—they must tactfully opt for a boycott.
A partial adoption of the Rivers strategy, with ethnic modifications, already unfolded in March 2023. After the APC suffered a humiliating home defeat in Lagos during the February presidential polls, party agents borrowed from the Rivers script. They mobilized thugs and invoked Oro traditions to bar a certain ethnic group from polling booths entirely. They spared no subtlety. Bigotry became expedient. The defeat of their political idol in his home state was deemed sacrilegious and blamed squarely on the Igbo. In the governorship election, thugs and rogue policemen were deployed freely to bully Igbo voters from polling units, snatch ballot boxes, suppress “usurpers,” and rig the outcome. Those who perpetrated this electoral fraud were rewarded with promotions for their “valour” and loyalty. The opposition chose rigid legal due process in a jungle
The opposition proved too reticent, too meek. It failed even to extract an apology, let alone compel Tinubu to address the violent ethnic disenfranchisement in Lagos. Little wonder that, in the buildup to 2027, opposition figures are now hounded in Lagos like traitors. Thugs, sponsored by elders, driven by a sense of mission against “Judases” and “usurping settlers,” have disrupted and destroyed ADC gatherings. How can the opposition expect to thrive when it keeps its hands tied behind its back, whimpering in the face of such aggression?
During the most recent local government elections in Lagos, a certain traditional ruler, buoyed by tribal patriotic instincts, publicly proclaimed that the opposition would not be permitted to campaign in his domain. Such criminal and provocative declarations have primed street urchins and led to physical attacks and injuries against opposition members. Because those who chased Igbo voters from polling booths in 2023 faced neither rebuke nor punishment—in fact, they were rewarded—and because ethnic tensions have only flared since then, casting Igbo and other settlers as usurpers, the notion of free and fair elections in Lagos in 2027 remains a pipe dream. If the opposition is neither willing nor able to force accountability, why participate to legitimize a fraud that is already foretold?
A few months ago, the Edo State Governor, speaking with the fervor of an illiterate agbero, threatened Peter Obi, an opposition leader. Obi had visited the state for charitable causes. The governor warned that if Obi returned without his approval, he would face ugly consequences. These threats were reinforced by the Edo APC chairman, a pugnacious figure who declared that many of his ilk hated Obi with such passion they could not tolerate his presence; to avert harm, the governor must bar Obi from setting foot in the state unless the chairman and his group were absent. The opposition likely dismissed these as mere rantings of ants. But had they recognized that the Edo governor is an obsequious mentee of a certain powerful minister , they might have spotted the devilry lurking and weaponized the outburst to dent the aggression of the wolf .
President Tinubu has been utterly disappointing. He long posed as not just a democrat but a pro-democracy activist. In opposition, he insisted democracy could not survive without a viable opposition. Yet as president—vested with the constitutional duty to defend and promote political liberties—he appears content to watch the naked intimidation and destabilization of the opposition with feigned ignorance, perhaps even glee. His wife calls him the architect of modern Nigeria. Critics mock that he is the architect only of Nigeria’s gradual slide into a one-party autocracy. Tinubu has prioritised political conquests and control over democracy and principled statesmanship to the unscrupulous level of utter irresponsibility.
Obi and other opposition leaders must brace for the challenges ahead. Obi was in Edo to receive Olumide Akpata, the former Labour Party gubernatorial candidate, into the ADC. The event at the party’s state headquarters ended abruptly after intelligence warned of an impending siege. They fled to the home of Oyegun to continue a stakeholders’ meeting. That retreat was cowardly. Fleeing and hiding only emboldens the hooligans. The opposition has to teach the public defiance.
Did hiding save them? Perhaps. While Obi and others hunkered down in Oyegun’s house, gunmen on bikes arrived and opened fire on the gate and parked vehicles. Had security personnel not taken preventive measures to lock them inside, some might have been assassinated. The perpetrators of this grave crime—committed near security agency offices—remain at large, with no arrests reported. So how will Obi and the opposition prosecute the electioneering campaigns if their recourse is to run like squirrels, like Senator Abe, once the armed hooligans appear? In the aftermath of the Edo gun attack, the broader opposition has left it to Obi and the other victims. Atiku and others only tweeted . They didn’t appreciate the jeopardy.
The opposition remains too aloof. The opposition appears unaware that the Rivers playbook has been fully adopted. Free campaigning will likely be impossible in many parts of southern Nigeria, especially battleground zones in the South-South and South-West. As elections approach, expect a massive onslaught against opposition leaders and supporters by law enforcement. Intimidating, occupying, frustrating, sequestering. Bush bandits will morph into political mercenaries. Frivolous criminal prosecutions choreographed with remand prison time will become routine. With carrots and daggers dangling over the heads the fainthearted, the pernicious sabotage of the opposition is inevitable.
On election day, thugs will reign supreme in many areas. Unless protected, Igbo voters in Lagos may see no point in risking their lives and stay away. Thugs and police will snatch materials, write results, and upload them to IReV. That was why the new electoral act was laced with loopholes . Some opposition agents, less cautious than their cowardly leaders, may be mowed down. Once again , ghosts will moonlight as INEC collation officers. They will vanish after announcing fabricated results like one who was the collating officer for a LGA where they produced magic in the last presidential election.
That’s the Rivers playbook. If the opposition isn’t ready, it shouldn’t bother.
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