The just concluded FCT Area Council Election left a huge lesson on political strategy and the logic of how not to play opposition. The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike invested his time and energy into an election that was going to give a faint idea of what to expect in 2027. At the end of the exercise, Wike alone defeated Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, and all other opposition elements who individually campaigned for their candidates.
Members of the ADC were as disorganized as the candidates they paraded. They couldn’t organise themselves in a manner that would speak to their collective aspirations. They were visionless, spineless, self-centered, egocentric, full of empty pride and lost out completely, against just one man; Nyesom Wike. How on earth would members of the ADC embark on different campaigns; Obi was on his own, Atiku was on his own, Amaechi was on his own, all at different times campaigning for one candidate.
An opposition party of ADC’s emanations, displaying such structureless approach to campaign, ridicules the very capacity they pride themselves with. They showed zero strategy, and lost woefully to Nyesom Wike.
Politics is all about sentiments, nurtured through perception and strategy that delivers the votes. The noisy noise of the ADC was almost drowning the political landscape in Abuja, but I was shocked to listen to all manner of remonstration from ADC kingpins, who expressed their disgust at the folly of their failure. Some complained about their beleaguered candidates. Others lamented about the egocentric mindlessness of the chieftains of the ADC, who were more interested in their individual ambitions, than a holistic organisation that would have spoken volume about the party. They were more interested in keeping watch over the iREV platform, waiting for their hackers to post results that were created or generated by AI to deceive the people.
While Nyesom Wike was busy campaigning, building consensus around candidates and striking political deals that would strengthen the President’s party, the ADC entered into the fray, divided along their vaulting ambition and expected to pull a fast one from the process. While iREV managers were there uploading votes from the field, ADC were in their situation room quarreling about the character of their candidate. Amaechi, Atiku and Obi were all disparate in their approach, unable to connect the dots, and fell flat from understanding the intricate logic of political campaigns.
At the epicentre of these ugly realities, ADC’s main candidate, the award wining perennial candidate for president in Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, sat helpless, wondering if this adventure of a new platform was worth the trouble. At their situation room, tirades were exchanged, anger was let loose, confusion was freely cultivated, as the leaders felt beaten mercilessly by just a single man, the FCT Minister, whose organic campaigns across the six Area Councils deepened the success recorded on Saturday, 21st February. This FCT election was going to be the litmus test for the opposition ADC in their recent excursion for political relevance. As desperate as they appeared, they were humbled by the capacity exhibited by Nyesom Wike. If this is how they intend to lay siege around iREV platform, instead of campaigning and mobilizing for votes, the defeat that awaits them in 2027, will be a monumental one. President Tinubu did not campaign during the preparations for the FCT elections.
The Chairman of the party didn’t also campaign. Even the committee that was set up by the APC headquarters didn’t lose sleep over the preparations. Wike alone was enough meat for them to chew, and yet, they couldn’t chew the Ikwerre-born political bull-dozer, whose performance at the FCT as Minister has been stellar.
The PDP that has been underwhelming managed to pull one back, to make the score 5-1. ADC looked like sheep without shepherds, licking their wounds with blame game dominating their inner discussions. Wike has just taught them a bitter lesson. President Tinubu has just shown with simple body language how to play the big boy in a game of political chess. He trusted his foot soldiers, he understood the rubrics of the game, he knows how to connect the dots, to deliver the political algorithms that would signpost victory.
This election also shows that Peter Obi is being overrated. Aside from low voters turn-out, Peter Obi’s campaign at the City Centre was more like a storm in a tea cup. There was no concentric discourse that could weave together the voters. Obi’s message was the same weather-beaten rhetorics of trying to remind the people about poverty and hardship, without offering alternative ideas on how to confront such realities. When political campaigns are driven by empty rhetorics, what you get are often the reverse of what is expected.
Atiku, Amaechi and Obi have become a troika in their shared determination to alter the applecart of President Tinubu’s political trajectory. But what President Tinubu has in strategy, they have in selfish ambition. They are unable to rally round one individual. They all boast of relevance. They boast of content, yet their campaigns are often anchored on the labyrinth of empty promises. The people are beginning to understand their style, imagine the huge crowd at the National Assembly, all asking for real-time upload. The same crowd could not enter Abuja streets and villages to campaign, only for them to complain of apathy. When election has not been concluded, YIAGA AFRICA was already giving its own verdict, such nebulous reading of a process that was yet to birth the final outcome.
Nyesom Wike deserves some accolades for pulling this one through without reported violence and hooliganism. It is obvious that President Tinubu might end up not having a strong opponent in the 2027 election, if the outcome of the FCT election is anything to go by. More garlands for Minister Wike, a man who has delivered on performance in reshaping the architectural well-being of the FCT and repositioning the political dynamics of the nation’s seat of power.
