Olu Allen
In the hot kitchen of Nigerian power, where rivals are not defeated but digested, one man has mastered an art older than the republic itself.
Watch closely.
There is a pattern here.
It escapes the casual eye.
Those who once sharpened their tongues against Bola Ahmed Tinubu do not disappear from the stage. They return. Not humbled. Not silenced. But transformed.
They return wearing his colours, speaking his language, defending with exact fury what they once attacked with equal passion.
This is not forgiveness.
Forgiveness implies warmth between men.
What we are watching is colder.
More precise.
It is absorption.
Consider the evidence, laid out without noise.
The lawyer who once questioned his credentials before the bar of public opinion now defends those same credentials before the same audience, using the same legal tools he once wielded as weapons.
Festus Keyamo stands as one of the clearest illustrations of this transformation, a man whose earlier demands for scrutiny have matured into vigorous defence.
The fiery political communicator who once described his political machinery in the harshest possible language now markets that same machinery as indispensable to national stability.
Femi Fani-Kayode exemplifies the arc: from relentless critic to passionate advocate, delivered on the same public stages where the original condemnation was performed.
One conversion might be coincidence.
Two might be chance.
But when the list lengthens like a shadow at sunset, coincidence retires and strategy takes the stage.
Now we must ask the question that burns beneath every transaction of Nigerian politics:
What manner of power produces this effect?
Two explanations present themselves.
You must decide which one your mind accepts.
The First Explanation
Some will tell you this is genius, the cold, calculating genius of a man who understands that enemies outside the tent are dangerous, but enemies inside the tent are assets.
Once absorbed, the former critic brings valuable gifts: knowledge of the opposition’s playbook, credibility among former skeptics, and the desperate loyalty of a man who must now defend the transformation he has undergone.
Who fights harder for the king than the former rebel now dressed in royal robes?
Who shouts louder in defence of the palace than the one who once threw stones at its gates?
In this reading, the method is elegant.
You do not destroy your enemies.
You repurpose them.
You let them carry the very weapons they once aimed at you, now aimed at your enemies instead.
The noise decreases. The opposition loses its loudest voices.
The converted become living proof that resistance eventually bends toward the centre.
This is politics played at the level of human nature itself.
The Second Explanation
But there is another reading.
Darker. Less comfortable.
Perhaps what we are witnessing is not the genius of one man but the hunger of many.
Perhaps those who once spoke with moral fire did not evolve, they adjusted. Perhaps criticism in our politics has always been negotiable, and once the price of silence is paid, transformation follows naturally.
In this reading, yesterday’s accusers become today’s defenders not because they were outmanoeuvred but stand because they were accommodated.
The questions that once burned on their lips are buried under appointments.
The outrage that once filled their speeches is replaced by the quiet comfort of proximity to power.
And the bitterest irony?
Some now mock ordinary citizens for asking the very questions they themselves once shouted from every available platform.
The converted become the enforcers.
The former critics become the new gatekeepers, more zealous than the original guards.
Here, containment is not genius.
It is settlement.
A marketplace where accountability is traded for access, and public trust becomes the currency that changes hands.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Both explanations contain elements of truth.
That is what makes this spectacle so difficult to judge.
Human beings are layered.
Motives are rarely pure.
A man may genuinely believe he has found new conviction while also enjoying the comfort that accompanies that conviction.
A strategist may absorb critics for cold calculation while presenting it as reconciliation.
The bridge between opposition and loyalty is often paved with both sincerity and self-interest.
Perhaps the method works precisely because it offers ambiguity, a dignified crossing for those who wish to move closer to power, wrapped in the language of unity, serving the function of neutralisation.
What is certain is this:
In the theatre of Nigerian power, one figure has executed this method with consistent effectiveness. He does not merely defeat critics. He does not exile them. He does not ignore them.
He absorbs them into the very structure they once opposed, and in doing so, turns opposition itself into a revolving door.
The plate is before you now.
The ingredients have been laid out.
The pattern has been observed.
You must decide:
Is this the mark of a master political operator who understands that the most complete victory is not when enemies are destroyed, but when they speak for you in their own voices?
Or is it proof thaty many who once carried the banner of principle were never truly soldiers, only merchants, waiting for the right price?
Taste carefully.
In the end, the highest form of political conquest may not be the capture of territory, but the capture of tongues.
Allen writes from Kano. He writes on public affairs and promote good governance..
