The biggest mistake that anyone can make when dealing with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is to think he is an ordinary person. He is not. No matter what you throw at him he comes out on top.
He is a what those that are familiar with Yoruba mythology describe as an “akanda eniyan” which basically means he is a “special one” that is endowed by God with extraordinary grace and some kind of spiritual and mystical powers.
He is wily, tough, resilient, courageous, cunning, wise and most important of all patient.
We tried to pull him down for years but failed. Yours truly was amongst the ranks of those that did so until 2020 when I realised I was wrong, saw the light, retraced my steps, had a Paulian conversion and fought hard for him in the 2023 presidential campaign.
And I was not alone. In the end many of those that once oppposed him are now with him and, as is usually the case with converts, are even more fanatical and vocal in our support for him than others because we need to justify our change of heart and new-found position and make up for our past mistakes and error of judgement.
He recognises that fact and that is why he is so accomodating, forgiving and magnanimous in victory. He welcomes all: even those who once fought and opposed him.
And unlike others he rewards and builds up his supporters and loyalists and does not seek to denigrate, humiliate, crush or destroy them. That is the secret of his success.
Simply put he cannot be stopped and this is a lesson that his enemies have yet to learn.
He is what we Christians call a “sign and a wonder” and there is no doubt in my mind that the Lord is with him.
Those that are ganging up against him to stop him in 2027 are indulging in an exercise in futility. Not only will they fail but they will fail woefully.
And already we see signs of that. Permit me to share just one example.
I was informed about the division and disintegration of the Senator David Mark-led faction of the ADC and the increasingly acrimonious divorce proceedings that are taking place between the Atikulators within their ranks on the one hand and the Obidients and Kwakwansians that have chosen to pack their bags and walk out on the other.
To make matters worse I also gather that a young man by the name of Nafiu Bala has what is left of Mark’s faction of the ADC by the balls and has them tied down in court.
After processing these developments I sat back in my favourite chair and laughed in Swahili.
This is because we had seen all of this coming right from the start and we said so.
How can a battle ship hope to float let alone embark on a successful military campaign when it has too many captains on board and when it is loaded and filled to the brim with the loudest, crudest, most unruly, most indisciplined, most vulgar, most disrespectful, most abusive and most aggressive band of drunken sailors who are little better than wild-eyed pirates.
This was a break up and break down that was waiting to happen and frankly their marriage of opportunism and convenience was doomed from the start.
What we are witnessing today is a fall out that was predictable and inevitable and the fact that they are now turning their guns on one another and attempting to blow each other to pieces not only vindicates those of us that dismissed them as a bunch of clowns right from the start but also gives us immense joy.
We have brought out the popcorn and are watching them with keen interest as they fire the most modern drones and inter-continental ballistic missiles at each other which of course will result in their mutual destruction.
Yet even as entertaining as this whole drama is to behold it is not my focus in this contribution.
Instead I have chosen to share a few words with at least two of the protagonists in the conflict who I have a soft spot for and who I find particularly fascinating.
My objective here is to offer them both some unsolicited counsel and advice.
Let us hope they take it in good faith and that neither takes offence.
If they do, I pray that they forgive me because, a usual, I mean them no harm, I wish them no ill and I come in peace.
Permit me to begin with my dear aburo and much loved friend Mr. Peter Obi (@PeterObi).
My brother, you went from APGA to PDP to LP to ADC and now to NDC.
This means that you went to 5 different political parties over the last 27 years since our return to democracy in 1999.
Now let me come to my dearest older brother and highly esteemed leader Waziri Atiku Abubakar
(@Atiku).
My leader, you went from PDP to ACN to PDP to APC to PDP and now to ADC.
This means that you also went to 6 different political parties over the last 27 years since our return to democracy in 1999.
Between you both you have collectively changed political parties no less than 11 times between 1999 and 2026!
This must be a world record of some sort when it comes to changing sides and using others to achieve your personal objectives and satisfy your insatiable desire for power.
With the greatest respect I would urge you both to kindly take note of the fact that political parties are not established and designed to be used like toilet paper and then flushed down the lavatory.
They are meant to be vehicles of honor that are designed to serve the collective interest of ALL their members and ultimately our country and not just the narrow interests and vain ambitions of the two of you.
Leaders are meant to live for the benefit of their political party: the political party is not meant to live for the benefit of its leaders.
Forgive me for saying this and know that I say it with love and mean no offence but you are beginning to look and behave like the character called Gollum in J.R. Tolkien’s epic titled Lord of the Rings.
Like the goblins and orcs in that famous book, Gollum was desperate, hideous, ugly, twisted, irretrievably corrupt in mind, body, spirit and soul and driven by the rarest and most destructive form of madness.
I know that deep down, like Gollum himself, you once had good hearts but sadly politics has brought out the worse in you and today you reflect all of those frightful characteristics and
traits.
You crawl and hiss like snakes in a pit as you slither from one political party to the other looking for the power that neither of you shall EVER achieve and spreading a hateful venom that has no place in civilised climes or in the land of the sane.
To see elderly, experienced, intelligent and respectable men who many once had so much affection and respect for degenerate to this degree and to recognise the fact that they have no loyalty to anything or anyone other than their personal delusions and vainglorious ambitions is a tragedy of monumental proportions.
This is especially so in the case of Waziri who, despite our past differences, has always had a special place in my heart given the fact that that he was the Vice President in a Government in which I proudly served not just as a presidential spokesman but also as a two time Minister 23 long years ago!
Sadly that was in the past and today presents us with a new reality which is that both of these two formerly decent men have fallen and are a shadow of their former selves.
Worse of all is the fact that they are only in politics for themselves and that they only want power for the sake of having it.
They are both totally and completely obsessed with and mesmerised by their futile quest for the Presidency of Nigeria and this unfortunate affliction may have affected their psychological disposition and negatively impacted on their mental health.
Their loyalty is to their personal ambitions and not to their party or our nation and that is precisely why they are not capable of managing their differences, of staying together in one party and of providing a united front.
Permit me to put the following question to them both directly: if you can’t even manage to hold your party together and stay in one place how can you possibly manage to run the affairs of our beloved country Nigeria with all its religious and ethnic diversity and all its complexities?
It would be a frightful and dangerous thing to put the levers of power in your hands because everything you do would be driven by your compulsion for and obsession with that power.
As a matter of fact it is clear that if you ever achieve it (God forbid) you would never let it go and ultimately it would not only destroy you but it would destroy our entire nation as well.
Like Gollum craved for the Ring of Power you crave for the Presidency of Nigeria and you are totally addicted to it.
That is what makes you so unfit to lead.
We know that you are both great planners and highly experienced specialists and experts in the art and intricacies of political intrigue and subterfuge but God is great and the Holy Koran tells us that “Allah is the greatest planner of all!”
We recognised your weaknesses and obsessive disposition when you gathered your forces together in the ADC and we asked God to deliver our nation from you by scattering your ranks.
We looked to the Holy Bible and stood on Isaiah 54 15:17 which says, “surely they shall gather but it shall not be of me: whosoever gathers against thee shall be scattered for thy sake”.
The Lord heard our prayers and not only scattered your ranks but also reduced you to be nothing more than a busy and vocal band of vagabonds and wanderers looking for something that you will NEVER find.
I say God is truly faithful: glory be to His holy name.
Permit me to add this.
A few days ago the famous black American podcaster Candace Owens said the following words about her fellow American and arch-enemy, the Zionist Ben Shapiro on X.
She wrote,
“You have no honor. You have no dignity. You have no loyalty — we as human beings are naturally averse to the spirit of Judas and that’s what Ben Shapiro demonstrates.”
These are strong words which, in the Nigerian context, can safely and appropriately be applied to the two of you.
Neither of you has honor, dignity or loyalty and both are seized by the spirit of Judas.
After the presidential election in a few months time you and your respective party members and followers will be worsted and humbled and you will both be thrown into the sea of oblivion and tossed into the dustbin of history.
What a sad end this will be to two illustrious careers that had achieved so much in the past and that once had so much potential for the future.
Like the Greek mythological character known as Icarus, your vanity, blind ambition and hubris caused you both to fly too close to the scorching sun with your waxen wings.
Consequently the wax melted, your wings collapsed, your dreams were shattered, your hopes were dashed and like Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, you fell and met your nemesis.
Sadly this is your portion and that shall be your end.
Now some young Obidients who know no better will say that President Bola Tinubu has been a member of numerous political parties over the last 27 years as well but let me explain the difference between his experience and that of Atiku and Obi.
It is true that between 1999 and 2026 the President has been in the AD, AC, ACN and APC but the difference is that he was the sole founder, builder and leader of the first three of the four parties mentioned and he was the co-founder and co-leader (together with President Muhammadu Buhari) of the fourth.
He simply changed the name of his original party the AD to AC and then to ACN and kept building on it by adding other groups and key individuals and bringing them on board until a formidable platform called the APC that was capable of wrestling power from the old PDP was finally established in 2014.
He never abandoned any of the parties he founded, he never highjacked anyone else’s party and he never insisted on running as President until 2023 even though the platforms essentially belonged to him in all those years!
At every point he put the interest of his party first before his own even though on some occassions he was treated badly and suffered for it.
Through all those years, from 1999 till 2026, he bided his time and exercised patience and restraint giving others the chance to run for the top job on platforms that he established, funded, nurtured and jealously protected and guarded.
He was selfless in this respect and when he made his bid to become flagbearer of the APC in 2023 no-one could stop him despite the efforts that some made.
From there he went on to win the presidential election and, by God’s grace, he will win again in 2027.
The secret to his success is that, unlike others, he was patient, calculating, kind, generous, forgiving and charitable to others and he was not driven by a malevolent and violent obsession or vaulting ambition.
He was wise enough to know that only a fool will seek to divide and destroy his own party platform in an attempt to become flagbearer and only a bigger fool will go to someone elses platform to try to steal it, forcefully take it over and use it to run for the Presidency.
He built his own, he funded it, he developed it, he expanded it, he was generous to others with it and allowed them to use it and eventually, when the time was right, the members and leaders of his party themselves rewarded him for his efforts and loyalty by electing him to be their flagbearer.
This took discipline, patience, fortitude, foresight and faith in God, qualities and virtues which Tinubu had in abundance and which Atiku and Obi not only lack but simply cannot comprehend.
That is the difference between his situation and political history and theirs.
His spoke of loyalty, discipline and unalloyed commitment to a collective progressive and ideological cause whilst theirs is rooted in opportunism, chicanery, mischief, deceit, betrayal and intrigue.
Unlike him, neither Obi or Atiku ever founded, led or established any of the political parties whose platforms they used or attempted to use to run for public office or the Presidency.
They were always joiners and highjackers and never builders.
Permit me to conclude with the following.
On the part of Peter Obi I have reason to believe that there is a distinct possibility that his newly formed party known as NDC, which is led by my good friend and a man for whom I have immense respect, Senator Seriake Dickson the former Governor of Bayelsa state, may also end up having problems because more often than not when Peter does not have his way, Peter walks away.
It is common knowledge that Obi and his Obidients have insisted on being gifted the Presidential ticket of the NDC for themselves and that is where the problem lies.
I do not see how a seasoned and highly respected Northern politician like Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso who has been in politics for over 50 years, who has served diligently and selflessly at both the state and Federal level as Governor and Minister respectively, who has been through the political mill, who is formidable in all his ways and who is far more principled, critical and concise in his thinking can accept to be the running mate to a man like Peter Obi that lacks ANY experience at the Federal level and that is, in every sense, his inferior.
This is the same Kwankwaso that is very sensitive about and protective of Northern interests and who is always the first on the spot when Northerners are attacked or killed in the South.
The Obidients naively insist that a man with such credentials should now be running mate to Peter Obi who not only forcefully and cruelly threw Northerners out of Anambra state when he was Governor but also flung them in trailers like cattle and sent them packing without notice.
If he can do that to Northerners as Governor what won’t he do to them as President?
The Kwankwaso I know would never bow or play second fiddle to such a man and he would never bring himself so low as to be his running mate.
Again this is the same Kwankwaso that went to Chatam House in London and asked them how he, a PhD holder, could possibly be running mate to a man with the most inconsequential and negligible academic qualifications when compared to his and one that, apart from being far younger than him in age, is nothing but a common trader like Obi.
This is the same Kwakwanso that also once said “it is only the enemy outside that is saying I will be a running mate to Peter Obi”.
This is the same Kwankwaso that banned the sale of alcohol in his native Kano state when he was Governor and got the hisbah (the local Islamic police) to confiscate and destroy bottles of beer and close down beer parlours in an attempt to enforce that law.
How can such a man with such strong and laudable religious convictions and who, as a consequence of his faith, does not condone the drinking of alcohol accept to be running mate to an individual whose company not only brews, produces and manufactures beer but also sells it in cans and bottles that have the Biafran logo stamped on them?
Unless he has changed and has shed himself of every vestige of dignity and self-respect and has been afflicted with the bug of unbridled and blind ambition, the Kwankwaso that I have known for almost 26 years will NEVER reduce himself to be running mate to such a man.
If anything he would reverse the roles and insist on Obi being his running mate rather than the other way around and this is rightly so.
Worse of all is the fact that his intention of running with Obi either as presidential candidate or running mate may confirm the grave allegation levelled by the Americans that he is a terrorist- sympathiser which I really do not want to believe.
A joint ticket with Obi, who is a supporter and sympathiser of another terrorist organisation called IPOB, and him could well confirm the allegation that he believes more in the power of violence, terror and the gun than in the power of the ballot. This would be so sad and would strip him of every vestige of decency.
Obi to him is like the proverbial poisoned chalice: it looks wonderful on the outside and appears to be filled with promise but will bring nothing but death destruction.
Worse of all it will bring Kwankwaso’s hitherto great political career to a crashing and humiliating end.
Peter’s strange behaviour and eccentricities speak for themselves.
You say you want to be president and in the same breath you say “I don’t give shishi!”
One wonders whether this man is alright upstairs?
Is there any country in the world where presidential campaigns are not funded with money?
Will “shishi” provide and cater for the logistics for a modern nation wide presidential campaign or does he believe that the loud, aggressive and vulgar commentry and insults by his misguided and vocal supporters on social media threads alone will do it for him?
Honestly I worry for those young men and women man that have dedicated their sorry lives to him and that follow him blindly and fanatically.
It is pitiful.
They are like an old steam train that is roaring and revving it’s engine and blowing its whistle at the station but is going nowhere: all noise and heat but no motion. O ma se o!
Outside of that it is clear to me that even in the new party called the NDC Obi’s intransigence and insistence on being given the presidential ticket will eventually cause major problems and result in yet another cataclysmic breakdown and parting of ways.
Just as the union ended abruptly and acrimoniously in the case of the ADC so it shall be for this newly established marriage of opportunism and convenience in the NDC.
Things will soon fall apart and the whole coalition will crash and come to a sad and messy end.
That has been the lot of every single one of the three political parties (PDP, LP and ADC) that Peter Obi has sought to use as a platform to achieve his dream of becoming President or Vice President over the last seven years and that in itself should tell us something.
To buttress the point about the inconsistencies, chicken-hearted disposition, pathological duplicity and abysmal inability of Peter Obi to stand firm, remain loyal to a collective cause and see anything through from beginning to end even his running mate in the 2023 presidential election, Datti Baba Ahmed, has raised his concerns by saying that his former boss has a penchant for running away whenever he is faced with problems. His exact words were as follows.
“Someone who got Labour Party ticket so easily, should have stayed to fix the problems of Labour Party however difficult they were. I stood and I earned the wrath of many because I said ‘come and reconcile’ in Labour Party. Only for me to hear, to read it, and to even view it in the news. Here’s my former leader, my boss who I believe in, saying wherever there is a quarrel, he will walk away. So, there is a quarrel in Nigeria, you will walk away? These are things that don’t add up. If you’re not ready to fight, stay in your house. You are going into politics, which is a contact sport and you don’t want to argue? Then this is not your game”.
He concluded by saying “it is very unlikely that the North will rally behind a potential 2027 Obi/Kwankwaso ticket”.
If Peter’s 2023 running mate can say this about him and point out what are essentially his fundamental character flaws, questionable judgement and inability to see things through and make sensible choices who are we to dispute it?
To add to that Mr. Kenneth Okonkwo, one of Obi’s numerous spokesmen during the 2023 presidential campaign and a leading member of the ADC, had the following to say about him. He said,
“Peter Obi is not a democrat: he has never contested a primary election. Even in ADC when he was allowed to nominate the National Organising Secretary and determine the parties’ members registration, he still feared losing a free and fear primaries and ported. When Peter Obi came into ADC, his political career had ended, ADC actually gave him a lifeline. A man who says he is running away from challenges cannot be trusted with a country facing severe crises. His temperament is incompatible with the demands of Nigeria today. By nature chaos follows him. The political career of Peter Obi is dead even before he joined the ADC”.
These are bitter truths and harsh words coming from Obi’s erstwhile ally and spokesman: who are we to doubt them?
Yet another of his key supporters during the 2023 presidential campaign, my friend and brother and the former Secretary to the Federal Government in the Buhari administration, Mr. Babachir Lawal, said the following about the man he once believed ought to be President but whom he has now lost all confidence in.
He said,
“Peter Obi has some organic followers, they are called the Obidient movement. If you ask me, I could probably tell you five that I know. I have four children, they are young and they are not one of those Obidients”.
Such dismissive words from not just a former ally but from a man that literally carried Obi on his head in 2023 and led his campaign in the North represents a devastating blow to his aspirations and career.
He mocked and ridiculed him and he dismissed his support base as a bunch of vocal nobody’s who he did not know or recognise.
All these commentries from his erstwhile allies must be very painful for Peter to hear.
I pray he does not have a heart attack after losing the confidence and support of virtually every single one of his more notable backers during the 2023 election.
All this yet nothing and no-one has managed to dissect the character and expose the flaws of Peter Obi better than Omoba Bayo Onanuga, the Special Advisor to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Media, when he wrote the following on X:
“The scales have now fallen from the eyes of Babachir Lawal, a 2023 supporter of Peter Obi. He now realises that Obi, who dreads primaries, desires a consensus that benefits him alone—a philosophy seemingly ingrained in his DNA. In street parlance, it is called ‘Me only, nobody else’ or ‘I before anybody else’. Obi is a very selfish politician. He cannot build a political party. He goes to where other people have toiled to cook the soup and takes the biggest meat in the pot. Gbajue politician of this era!”.
Onanuga has hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Let us hope that Kwankwaso, Seriake Dickson and all those that are in the newly formed NDC with Obi open their eyes before it is too late.
Permit me to conclude with a final word to both Peter and Waziri Atiku Abubakar directly.
As always I wish you well but
I urge you to settle down and reconcile yourselves to a life outside of power because you will NEVER smell it again.
Have a great day, stay safe and please remember that, as always, my respect and affection for you both remains intact and that I come in peace.
Shalom.
(Chief David Oluwafemi Adewunmi Abdulateef Fani-Kayode, the author of this essay, is a former Minister of Aviation of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a former Senior Assistant on Public Affairs to President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ambassador-Designate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to South Africa, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a Legal Practioner)
