By Steve Osuji 

 _”We won’t bow to impunity, we won’t surrender, we will forge ahead because the law, the constitution, the people and God are with us.”   – Gov. Ademola Adeleke of Osun State.

Crushing Irony:  Why is nobody talking about this vicious politics playing out in Osun State? Why is all manner of evil being normalised in the country? Why are Nigerians losing sight of a crushing irony of this magnitude?

For one year and three months, the federal government, led by President Bola Tinubu has illegally seized the monthly allocation of 30 local government areas (LGAs) in Osun State. Over N150 billion and the very livelihood of about four million Osun people is being locked down ostensibly on account of dirty politicking.

But the crushing ironies here are that first, it seems not to matter that Osun is the native home of President Tinubu. Cold politics seems to be trumping filial relationship here.

And second, what’s going on is a  deja vu situation. In 2004, the federal government led by President Olusegun Obasanjo, had withheld the federal allocations due to Lagos State. The funds were held up until 2007 when Obasanjo was succeeded by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who promptly released the seized allocation.

REIGN OF IMPUNITY: In Obasanjo’s 2004, just as in  Tinubu’s 2025, impunity, abuse of power (federal might), perverse politics and crude leadership are at play.

Then, as it is now, the supreme court ruled against the withholding of a LGA’s federal allocation by the FG. But the apex court was blatantly disobeyed and repudiated by Obasanjo  just as Tinubu’s doing today.

Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State had created 37 more administrative areas from the existing 20 LGAs known to Nigeria’s constitution. The FG led by Obasanjo kicked against it. Governor Tinubu held his ground and his position was supported by the highest court in the land.

LIKE OBASANJO, LIKE TINUBU: Just as President Obasanjo was Governor Tinubu’s nemesis in 2004, President Tinubu is Governor Ademola Adeleke’s albatross today. Though the issues may be similar, the details are not exactly the same. While Obasanjo may seem to be defending the constitution he was sworn to, by  stopping the creation of more administrative entities not stated in the constitution, Tinubu’s current action is driven by crass politics.

He insists that LGA chairmen who are members of his party, but whose term of office had elapsed must be retained. 

A new ‘election’ has since been conducted by the present governor and new chairmen sworn in, but  the former LGA chairmen, helped by the federal police, have besieged and occupied LGA offices for over a year running.

As a confirmation of the crass politicking going on in Osun, exactly the same scenario played out in Edo State. Governor Monday Okpebholo inherited a PDP run local government system. He dislodged them and organised a fresh ‘election’ which brought in his party people.

OPERATION RECLAIM OSUN: This state is not only the birthplace of President Tinubu, it is supposed to be his political stronghold and catchment area. But in 2022, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of the APC was roundly defeated by popular and plucky Ademola Adeleke of the PDP.

That was during the era of President Buhari when there was still a modicum of credibility in elections. Besides, Oyetola, a sibling of Tinubu having failed woefully and lost woefully as governor, has since been rewarded with a federal ministerial appointment by Tinubu.

But Osun guber election is in August. Just three months away. If the election comes free and credible,  the incumbent Adeleke will surely trounce any APC candidate. This partly explains the ongoing brazen  attempt to muzzle the incumbent.

Starve the sitting government access to local government funds and cause disaffection between the people and current government. This is what the seizure of Osun LGA federal allocation is all about.

Apart from the fact that there was a Supreme court precedent going way back to the Obasanjo-Tinubu tango in 2004, in the current case, the supreme court has also ruled that the federal government has no right over LGA funds. The federation account doesn’t belong to the federal government. Three federating units – LGAs, States and the FG – are partners and equal owners of the funds in the federation account. For the FG to arrogate to itself, the power to seize any of the co-partners funds is hubris that needs to be cured quickly before it becomes cancerous.

If APC LGA chairmem feel hard done by, they should have approached the court to seek redress, not the presidency deploying federal might of Police and  the Ministry of Finance, to repress the opposition.

LIKE ADELEKE, LIKE TINUBU: As Governor Tinubu faced up to President Obasanjo in 2004, it’s the same way Governor Adeleke has stood up to President Tinubu today. Twenty-two years ago, Tinubu dug in, raised Lagos’ IGR, raised taxes and continued to pay LGA workers without a break.

So has Governor Ademola continued to ensure his workers get their pay every month. For one called a dancing governor; bon vivant and happy -go-lucky, Adeleke has showed and uncommon strength and steely will in his time of adversity.

At a public function last  February, he spoke firmly and strongly: he said Osun people would not bow to impunity. He condemned what is happening as an illegal hijack of Osun LGA funds and violation of Osun local finance laws.

Governor Adeleke declares: “We won’t bow, we won’t surrender, we will forge ahead because the law, the constitution, the people and God are with us. And we shall triumph to the glory of God.”

Very strong and vehement stance there.

How this plays out in the August election remains to be seen. It gets especially tough for Adeleke now that his party, PDP,  has been decimated by the agents of the FG. With all these arsenal arrayed against him, Adeleke retaining his seat would be a sheer miracle! But he’s got a lionheart, it seems.

LASTLINE: THE OBI-KWANKWASO TRAIN RAGES ON

The first time this duo showed its hand, there was turbulence in the polity. Peter Obi, the cause celebre of politics in Nigeria today had visited Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano during the Sallah period, the ancient city practically caught fire. But it was the heart of their opponents that got seared.

The ruling APC was so apprehensive it supporters became paroxysmal. Considering that APC had wooed Kwankwaso vigorously, almost going on their knees,  the scene from Kano wasn’t a surprise. They knew Kwankwaso’s cult following in Kano and neighbouring states. He shunned APC for ADC.

When last Monday, Obi walked from ADC for another party , NDC and Kwankwaso followed suit a few days later forging an iconic political marriage never seen before in Nigeria, it was nothing short of a political tsunami in the land.

The Obi-Kwankwaso ticket presents a most interesting political marriage. Both men command teeming organic followership that has become something of a cult hero worship.

While the OBiDIENTS movement is more widespread, the Kwankwasiya is deep in Kano, Jigawa and close by states.

With the ADC and Atiku left in the cold, and with the opposition divided, whether the OK Movement as Obi-Kwankwaso team is known, can tame the incumbency bull will be determined at the polls in January, 2027. Fingers crossed, but the air is thick and pregnant!

By Azu Ishiekwene

The former Labour Party presidential flagbearer, Peter Obi, thinks he is Nigeria’s most misunderstood politician. Why is it hard for us to see that his serial party flipping is not a sign of desperation but a tactic of survival for our own good?

Why, even though he has flipped political parties five times in three election cycles, should he be compared to Vice President Atiku Abubakar in political vagrancy? Who is chasing Obi and his new soulmate, former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso? There are three possible answers.

Tinubu’s hand

The firstsuspect is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He has been accused, rightly or wrongly, of having a hand in Obi’s travails. Apart from Obi’s first defection from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2014, three of the other four defections in the last 12 years have been blamed on Tinubu.

By the time Obi defected from PDP to the Labour Party in 2022, with about nine months to the general elections, he had transformed from a contender into an insurgent. He defeated Tinubu in his Lagos base and turned what was supposed to be a two-way horse race into a three-way contest, in which he came third with six million votes. Since then, Tinubu has learned the hard way not to ignore Obi.

Obi insurgency

To put an end to Obi’s insurgency, Tinubu allegedly set the Labour Party on fire. He also spread the flame to any other party, including the PDP, where Obi and any other potential challenger might find refuge. According to this argument, Tinubu’s machinations have been achieved mainly through a deadly combination of political proxies and judicial manipulations, leaving Obi with no other option but to run for his life.

Rabiu Kwankwaso’s political wandering has been less fraught nationally. At a point, in fact, it seemed he would join Tinubu’s government – a chance that Obi might never have had by the wildest stretch. Even Obi’s casual meeting with President Tinubu in the Vatican later became a source of speculation over a possible deal to save an embattled bank linked to him.

Whichever way you slice it, those who see Tinubu in every bad dream, egged on by the careless comments of some of his aides and party officials, believe he is responsible for the weakened state of Nigeria’s opposition parties.

Author of his misery

There is a second view of Obi’s inconstancy. Those who hold this view insist that, whatever residual Tinubu effect people may claim, Obi is the author and finisher of his current misery. His desperation is his number one enemy. This argument has never been more salient than in the last week since Obi announced his defection from the ADC to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a party formed nine years ago but registered only three months ago.

Not even Obi’s comment after he defected to ADC that he would defect 20 times if necessary, has assuaged the suspicion that, except if he was a hermit in a previous life, he is his own greatest problem.

An ADC source told me on Monday night that in the six months he worked with Obi as members of the same party, he had not seen a more desperate politician. Obi, the source said, couldn’t wait for the party to decide who its flagbearer would be and could barely hide his impatience.

To give him comfort, the position of the party’s National Organising Secretary was passed over the former road safety corps marshal, Osita Chidoka, and handed to Obi’s chosen, Chinedu Idigo. Yet, the concern that he could miss the bigger prize troubled him.

ADC. What changed?

There was nothing that Obi saw in the six months that he was in the ADC that he couldn’t have seen from outside one year before he finally decided to join. What is chasing Obi, in particular, is more than Tinubu and desperation combined: it is the fear of a contest. Obi wants the ticket on a platter – no contest, no opposition. Both Obi and his aides have denied this many times, but the evidence is not in their favour.

Four years ago, when he defected from PDP to Labour, he did so three days before the PDP’s presidential primaries. In Labour, he didn’t have to contest. He was handed the party’s flag. But it would be different this time.

If he had stayed in the ADC long enough, he would have either had to contest (direct primaries, a big risk for a politician without party structures) or negotiated with other contestants to be the party’s “consensus candidate,” a risk he could not afford.

So, he bailed out. In NDC, his new shelter, he is, as he was in Labour, the biggest act. After years of boasting that he will not play second fiddle, Kwankwaso will eat the humble pie and be content to be the prop and nothing more.

Kwankwaso and the snake charmer

What has changed since Kwankwaso said at Chatham House that he could not step down for Obi, adding later that Obi was not only an inferior candidate but that the North was unlikely to vote for him? Just like he did in 2023 when he used the NNPP to mobilise Kano votes for his surrogate governor, his gambit this time is to use Obi to mobilise Igbo votes in Kano to secure his base. Better a king in Kano than a spare tyre in Abuja.

But even that won’t be an easy ride. Already, there’s a video of the Kano chairman of the NDC, Usaini Mai Riga (with a live snake wrapped around his neck), invoking a curse on anyone who might think of contesting the party’s leadership with him. The question, therefore, is not who is chasing Obi and Kwankwaso, but what they are chasing.

Blame the system

Of course, there’s a third, completely different view: that it would be a misnomer to hold party-flipping against Obi or Kwankwaso since, unlike in some other countries, Nigeria’s political parties are not differentiated by ideology – they are mere special-purpose vehicles for grabbing power.

Even those who have criticised Atiku’s scandalous record of defections are happy to give Obi and Kwankwaso a pass. They’re in the race, this argument goes, not for themselves, but to find a place to stand to change the country.

That’s not where this argument ends. It insists that no politician in recent times has been haunted by the authorities as vilely as Obi, yet they have found nothing against him, and those haunting him see him as the relatively clean politician they would never be. This was a view strongly expressed in my conversation with an Obi fan who has known him closely for four years.

My response was that politics is messy, and hardly a contest among saints. As vile hauntings go, few have been tested like Atiku, former Senate President Bukola Saraki, Natasha Akpoti, Nyesom Wike, President Goodluck Jonathan, or Tinubu in the last 27 years. Yet, each of them has, to a large extent, stood their ground. There comes a point when you have to stand and fight.

Obi has chosen the politics of convenience. Or maybe, like former President Muhammadu Buhari, we’re expecting of him a quality he doesn’t have. In which case, the fault is ours, not his.

Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERHIP and author of the book, Writing for Media and Monetising It.