Olu Allen
There was a time when opposition in Nigeria meant structure, patience, and long-term thinking. When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sat outside power, he did not outsource frustration to microphones and hashtags; he built systems.
He did not cry foul, he counted delegates. He did not weaponize grievance, he engineered coalitions.
Power changed hands. Strategy did not.
Today’s opposition has migrated from ward meetings to social media threads, from grassroots mobilization to grievance rituals. If it is not blaming INEC, it is the security agencies. If not the agencies, it is the courts. If not the courts, it is “the system.”
When everything is the enemy, the real deficit is strategy.
Emotional Waves vs. Electoral Machines
The political energy behind Peter Obi in 2023 was undeniable, but energy is not structure. Passion does not replace polling agents. Viral enthusiasm cannot substitute ward chairmen.
The movement treated the presidential election as a finish line rather than the beginning of permanent organization.
Atiku Abubakar’s enduring ambition risks becoming ritual without reinvention. Experience that does not adapt becomes predictable, and predictability is fatal in competitive politics. Much of the opposition behaves as if anger alone can substitute for block-by-block mobilization.
The harder truth is this: losing has become comfortable for some. A class of professional opposition figures survives on perpetual outrage, fundraising for legal battles, dominating TV panels, preserving martyr status without bearing the burden of governance.
Maximizing noise while minimizing structural investment may sustain relevance, but it does not win elections.
For them, the movement is branding. For the ruling party, politics is infrastructure.
Infrastructure Over Emotion
The ruling party operates with mechanical clarity:
Expand legislative dominance.
Absorb governors and local structures.
Control ward and state party machinery.
Reward loyalty; neutralize dissent.
This is not ideology. It is organization.
While critics trend online, the ruling party tracks delegate lists. While outrage circulates, influence accumulates. It wins between elections, co-opting opposition figures, fragmenting coalitions, exploiting ambition.
Power is not moral. Power is organized.
Abuja Spoke – The Opposition Didn’t Listen
The recent Area Council elections in Abuja were not routine local contests; they were a stress test of organization.
The opposition entered with familiar accusations. The results exposed something simpler: a weak ground game. In ward after ward, the ruling party transported voters, deployed polling agents, and managed disputes in real time.
The opposition curated outrage for television.
They had influencers, but not interpreters for the illiterate voter. Press releases, but not precinct captains. Elections were treated as events to monitor, not systems to operate.
Instead of asking:
Where did we fail to mobilize?
Which wards did we ignore?
Who controls local structures?
How many polling units were unguarded?
They asked who to blame.
That is not strategy. It is avoidance.
The Illusion of Noise
Social media creates the illusion of majority. Elections are won by organized minorities.
The opposition has mastered optics but neglected persuasion. It has followers, not foot soldiers. Trends, not structures. Engagement, not machinery.
Algorithms do not vote. Wards do. Local governments do. Those are the terrains being conceded.
The Opening
The ruling party is not invincible. It carries the weight of economic strain and incumbent fatigue. But the opposition is running a national outrage campaign while the ruling party builds ward-level dominance.
Breaking the machine does not require winning the presidency immediately. It requires: Winning targeted local governments to build governance credibility.
Dominating by-elections to prove organizational strength.
Offering localized solutions instead of abstract national messaging.
You do not dismantle infrastructure with indignation. You compete with counter-infrastructure.
Winning Is a Skill
Blame is not a campaign strategy. Rage is not voter outreach. Moral superiority does not count ballots.
The ruling party is not unbeatable, it is better prepared. Politics rewards adaptation. You do not get what you deserve; you get what you organize.
Failing governments are not removed by outrage. They are replaced by those who organized while the failure unfolded.
The 2027 Ultimatum
If the opposition intends to compete seriously:
Build ward structures, not WhatsApp groups.
Recruit polling agents before influencers.
Treat local elections as foundations, not sideshows.
Reward loyalty with pathways to power.
Stop outsourcing failure.
Turn movements into machines.
Otherwise, 2027 will be predictable.
Power does not yield to outrage. It yields to organization.
The countdown has already begun.
Allen writes from Kano, he writes on public affairs and promote good governance.
