The 2027 election campaigns promise a reactivation of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Republics’ campaigns of acrimony and disturbing rhetoric. It will be a replica of a dog-eat-dog battle among Nigerian politicians. It brings to mind image of birds violently uprooting each other’s feathers.
“Who went to Togo, drank alcohol, and grabbed a woman? / He grabbed herbuttocks / She said, ‘Stop it, old man!’ / He said, ‘Wait, listen, I’m the President of Nigeria!’ / The President of Nigeria, who absconds with the nation’s money… / But now NPN nominates him / They even give him a title / To hell with you, niggardly ones! / Our leaders are whiskey drunkards / We’ve had enough of you / Our whiskey leader, we say to you, Allah is sufficient for us!”
Last Wednesday, in compliance with the Electoral Act, INEC literally removed the chains from the necks of Nigeria’s political tigers. The rituals of dangerous rhetoric, propaganda, fake promises, word coinages, and acrimony that we call political campaigns officially began.
Political campaigning is an essential element of democracy. All over the world, candidates persuade voters to cast their votes for them and their parties, using the platform to canvass policies. In his 1974 book, Popular Images of Politics, Dan Nimmo notes that politics is drama – a submission resulting from direct investigation of political phenomena. William Miles, borrowing a leaf from him in The Rally As Ritual, offered an even grimmer summary of political campaigns.
The barb thrown at Shagari came against the backdrop of his earlier criticism of other northern political parties – especially the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) – as being “un-Islamic.” The Maroka’s attack on him was seen as a perfect riposte.
In the traditional Hausa social structure, Maroka occupied a relatively low place. The Maroki (singular) or Marokiya (female) were traditional musicians, poets, and oral historians. While traditionally persons who begged for gifts or praise-sang (roko) for rulers, wealthy patrons, or brides at weddings in exchange for money or social status, today’s Maroka functions more like a court poet. Indeed, the Maroki have left the innocent turf of entertaining bards; the politicisation of praise-singing in Hausaland transformed them from innocent dispensers of praise into agents of acidic political insult.
This tendency to descend into political abuse began in the First Republic. By the Second Republic, the Maroka as a campaign tool—flatly rejecting restraint and engaging in shocking rhetoric—gained ascendancy. By traditional Hausa standards of social etiquette, this crossed the line. Unguarded Maroka weaponized defamation. Seeing the massive crowds courted by these bards, politicians made it a fad to “buy” a favorable image through them, showering them with gifts to receive unmerited public adulation while unleashing arrows at their enemies.
The NPN equally deployed its own Maroka. In the 1983 election, it hit the NPP:“Every slimy NPP stalwart is a dog / If he dies, do not bury him / Bury him in fire / The Ingrate Dog!/Jatau is a slave to the Jews / He will teach your sons to become effeminate / They will tie women’s wrappers round their hips / He treats people like dirt / Kano has elected a complete hypocrite / May Allah take away this Satan, King of the Ingrates!”
The opposition PRP took its own pound of flesh. At campaign venues, their Maroka mocked the NPN symbol – a house surrounded by maize:“Here is a house with a poster/Look, what is the symbol?/They drew a house without a gate/With corn sprouting a ‘beard’ (the fiber on the ear of corn)/An ear of corn is shameless/Like a child, it is carried on its mother’s back/But it sprouts a beard/Now if that isn’t the height of shamelessness/ To sprout a beard on your mother’s back / It is madness and nonsense to have corn as a symbol / We shall pluck the corn, break its ear / Throw it into the fire / Burn the beard! / Don’t be ensnared by the enemy / Traitors of the people, Traitors of our country.”
The 1983 general elections had heated up, and political thugs were having a field day. The ruling NPN was in a fierce struggle to win the election. In Kano, the battle was fiercer: PRP candidate Sabo Barkin Zuwo was sure of victory, as was the incumbent governor, Abubakar Rimi of the NPP. At campaigns, barbs were thrown like confetti—a riotous scenario the Yoruba describe as “Ẹni orí yọ, ó dì’lé!”
At this time, Shagari’s administration had made life unlivable for ordinary citizens. The economy had collapsed under crashing global petroleum prices, heavy foreign debt, and systemic mismanagement. With the Economic Stabilisation Act of 1 April, 1982—manifesting as Austerity Measures—political disorder became a national staple. The barbs against Shagari were Northern voters’ way of criticising the NPN administration. The ruling party was embroiled in accusations of financial embezzlement and heavy consumption of exotic champagne at the expense of public welfare. The media reported scandalous behavior by ministers, highlighted by Umaru Dikko’s claim that he would only believe Nigerians were suffering if he saw them scavenging for food in refuse bins. These perceived ungodly conducts contrasted sharply with the belief that leaders must care for the led. It gave rise to rich oral poetry satirising political corruption and the re-nomination of incumbents.
Women were not left out of the hustings. Earlier in the First Republic, Adanma Okpara (wife of Eastern Region Premier Michael Okpara), Mrs. Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo, and Faderera Akintola campaigned actively. In 1964, Adanma canvassed in the Western Region for the UPGA alliance between her husband’s NCNC and the Action Group. In 1960, ahead of the House of Assembly elections, Mama Awolowo addressed the crowd at Asipa Market in Oyo with a microphone, declaring that the NPC and NCNC “retard progress in the West just as they have done in the North and East,” earning loud ovations. Given the fierce rivalry between their husbands, Faderera Akintola routinely countered her.
For more on the above, see William FS Miles’ 1989 piece, “The Rally as Ritual: Dramaturgical Politics in Nigerian Hausaland,”Comparative Politics, Vol. 21, No. 3).
Again last week, both Atiku and Tinubu engaged in what the Yoruba call the unceasing, perennial battles of co-housewives – mirrored in the saying, “Ìwọ kan l’ánà, ìwọ kan l’ónì, bí ẹkùn apọkọjẹ.” It describes an individual who relentlessly consumes space, much like a stubborn, nagging wife. Yet, for these politicians, these perennial battles are purportedly fought for the betterment of Nigerians.
Atiku took umbrage against the president’s removal of the petrol subsidy and the liberalization of the foreign exchange market. The effects of these knee-jerk policies – which the president confessed he took when “the spirit” pounced on him – have been a sharp rise in inflation, a spike in transport costs, and a skyrocketing cost of living. “If elected, I will bring back the oil subsidy, and whoever stole the money must refund it,” the former Vice President declared – a position where Atiku reversed himself as easily as ice melts into water, having previously supported the measures. While meeting the Osun State governor last week, the president fired back, describing Atiku’s proposal as a “demonstration of serious ignorance on governance and economy.”People see it as raw and unstatesmanlike. The commentariat immediately reminded Tinubu of his own hypocrisy, recalling how he fiercely attacked President Goodluck Jonathan’s attempt to halt the subsidy regime in 2012.
What remains unchanged is that ordinary Nigerians endure unbearable pain, their necks stretched long like the àgùnfọn (giraffe) under the fuel subsidy removal. They see helplessness in the government’s futile attempts to return them to their pre-May 2023 living standards, while official spokespersons recite economic policies as if citizens can feed on theories. This is why Atiku cannot be entirely faulted. While subsidy payments served as an ATM for government vermin, its withdrawal under Tinubu has become a filthy lucre agbónmágbe – a corrupt source that never runs dry – for Aso Rock gluttons who siphon the sweet bone marrow (mùdùnmúdùn) into their agbada. (Agbónmágbe takes its name from Agbónmágbe Bank, founded May 2, 1945 in Ibadanby Chief Mathew Adekoya Okupe, which transformed into Wema Bank Limited in 1969 after its acquisition by the Western Nigeria Marketing Board).
The presidential campaigns promise a deeper descent into ad-hominem attacks by political gladiators. This pattern will likely intensify when governorship campaigns begin. Politicians will do nothing new, avoiding the core question of why Nigerian politics remains trapped in personal invective. We are reminded of Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again (1977), where the politician Lejoka Brown adapts the national anthem as a campaign weapon, and Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966), where the corrupt Chief MA Nanga uses songs, money, and local dialect to purchase political relevance.
Language is “the key to the heart of the people”, so says a comment. “If you lose it, you lose the people; if you keep it safe, it unlocks their hearts.” This is the paramount key Nigerian politicians will use moving forward, weaponizing speeches, jingles, and campaign songs. Propaganda will come in handy. As defined by scholars, propaganda aims to misinform, mislead, and consciously indoctrinate by slanting facts while withholding pertinent truths to divert attention, often wrapping rhetoric in loaded questions.
This was evident in Lagos State in 2007. When then-Governor Tinubu backed Babatunde Fashola as his successor against opposition candidate Musiliu Obanikoro, the Fashola campaign group sarcastically asked voters at rallies: “…what would have happened if Koro (Obanikoro) had been chairman for 3 years?” They supplied the answer: “The whole of Broad Street would have been razed to ashes.” They asked further: “Should this man ever have the effrontery to become the governor of Lagos state in this era of accountability and transparency?” As the crowd chorused, the campaign warned that Alausa “must not catch fire!” and urged Lagosians to elect a credible governor. Days later, the Obanikoro group hit back: “…Can 2 weeks of ‘patch-patch’ activities salvage eight wasted years?” Obanikoro later added another expletive aimed at Tinubu: “They told us they have reformed the economy; which economy?”
Nigerians will witness more vague and abusive utterances throughout these campaigns. While on a presidential campaign in Akure in 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo freely used vulgar language, calling a former governor “a liar” and saying, “I don’t know whether his mother’s rival cursed him.” He said further of Atiku: “When he says good morning to you, you have to open the window first to check what time of day it is before you answer him.”
Politicians will also resort to word coinages and colloquialisms. In that same 2007 Lagos race, Obanikoro’s campaign team spun Fashola’s name into argot, urging voters to “Fa! Fa! Fa! Fashy [discard] them!”It counter-attacked by playing on Obanikoro’s name, declaring: “…This is why we must reject the PDP man ‘Koro’ (bitterness) in Lagos… PDP must not be allowed to ‘Koro De’ Lagos…” – a homophone of the Yoruba phrase Ikoro-de (bitterness has arrived). Also, when Muhammadu Buhari campaigned, his past military regime’s harshness was coined into “Bruharity” to imply that brutality awaited voters if he were elected. Politicians will deploy abusive songs and every linguistic weapon available in their quest for power.
As the 2027 campaigns unfold, the persistent return to acrimony, linguistic trickery, and personal invective reminds us that while the political actors may rotate, the fundamental mechanics of Nigerian political warfare remain unchanged. Rather than offering substantive policy debates, candidates continue to rely on traditional tropes, weaponized language and public spectacles to capture power. Until the electorate demands clear governance strategies over dramatic displays, Nigerian politics will remain an ongoing loop of feather-plucking gladiators – a spectacle where the politicians battle for victory, but the public pays the price.
Good Morning, Tony!
In June, 2006 when I moved into Enugu, it was a huge culture shock for my family and me. One example should be persuasive of the shock. A few days after our arrival, I took my three-year old son to meet my Unilag classmate, Dan Nwomeh and his friends at the Presidential Hotel. On sighting them, the poor boy prostrated on all fours. Apparently aghast at the sight, Nwomeh’s friends burst into laughter. Terrified by what he perceived a rejection, my son cried. When we got back home, I took him on a tutorial on cross-cultural norms and beliefs. “You have left Yorubaland where prostrating to elders is a required social code. Here, all you do is offer polite greetings,” I told him. From that day, he adjusted.
A few years earlier, in 1996, I was totally troubled by what I thought was an abhorrent act of my neighbour, a young Benue State-born couple. I presume the couple’s tribe was Idoma. I arrived my one-room apartment to be told that their lad, Oche, who was ill, had passed. As I mourned, preparatory to meting them to offer my condolences, I heard clanking of bottles and heavy celebratory songs. When I walked into their living room, the sight that confronted me was terrifying. Pounded yam and assorted drinks were on offer. Guests and family of the late kid were downing both as if they had just won a tombola. I took my excuse and faded out.
In Enugu, more culture shocks awaited me. In conversations, office subordinates wilfully spiked the prefix,“Brother” that accompanies such exchanges in western Nigeria. Conversely, I found out that the Igbo are highly respectful in other areas. On Enugu streets, I got greetings from young and old strangers who did not know me from Adam. This is a habit that is fast dying in Yorubaland. Younger ones walk past you without the sound of a hoof.
When last week, billionaire businessman and UBA Group Chairman, Tony Elumelu, corrected a female graduate trainee who casually greeted him as “Tony” during an interactive session, it provoked viral claims and counter claims. The young lady had greeted Elumelu “Good morning, Tony”. Though the business octopus initially approached this greeting with a smile, thinking she said “Toyin,?” upon clarification, he pleasantly stopped her and said: “No, you won’t call me Tony. I’m not… you’ll call me Mr Elumelu or TOE [Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu] or Chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of Oyinbo life.”
The exchange quickly spread like bushfire in harmattan. While many supported Elumelu on need to maintain Africa’s traditional values of respect for seniority, even in a corporate world, others felt Elumelu’s correction was a put-down for a nervous trainee perceived to have been a victim of stage fright.
Others, like Omoyele Sowore, saw double standard. A video of an earlier engagement Elumelu had with a Stanford University student who cavalierly referred to him as “Tony” was used to illustrate this claim. It was later shown that Elumelu gave the young UBA trainee lady the necessary pad and advice in her career switch from a Tik-Toker to a staff of UBA.
Both proponents, to my mind, have strong arguments. I suspect that that young lady must have been railroaded by banks’ corporate tradition and perhaps, UBA’s staff, who, apologies to Chief Rotimi Williams and his “death of Simply Mister” battle of The Guardian newspaper of the 1980s, that everyone was addressed as “Simply their first names.”
The greatest asset of the Blackman and Africa in particular is our tradition and culture. Regrettably, they are dying. I remember when, sometime in 2006, Ebeno Topsy, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, paid a courtesy call on the governor of Enugu State. Upon meeting him in the full glare of the world, I gave him an all-four dòbálè which many onlookers at the Lion Building couldn’t fathom. I was very proud of myself. I guess Ebeno was, too.
I think Elumelu did well by underscoring the values of Africa at that event. His genial receipt of same greeting in Stanford is immaterial. This is because, there, he was in Rome and needed to do like Romans. But here is Africa. Nigeria. As viral videos have also confirmed, even American memoirist and essayist, Maya Angelou, walked the Elumelu route. In a 1990 recording of the television show, People Are Talking, Ms Angelou was taken aback when Kim Watts, a 20-year-old audience member named Kim Watts, began her question to her with a reference to her as“Maya”. Not one to suffer fools gladly, Angelou stopped that descent and said, “And first, I’m Ms. Angelou. I’m not Maya… you have no license to come up to me and call me by my first name.” Like Elumelu, she however, later offered her apologies to Watts for the curt outburst, never for a moment shy from underscoring the kernel of respect and discipline which should be the forte of all generations.
The Snake-infested Palm Tree Adeleke Climbed
When the masquerader – a terrestrial being in the ancient cosmological beliefs of Yoruba and Igbo people – slips and falls, he immediately turns it into a corpus of art or craft he brought into the marketsquare. The masquerader then immediately springs up from the fall, does some electrifying body gyrations and the watching crowd claps for his mastery of his craft. If you ask me, what President Bola Tinubu and his APC have done thus far with the fatal failure of the APC in the Osun State election is replicated in the masquerader or an Alálùpàídà – a magician – sustaining a huge fall and clandestinely turning the fall into a dancing magical art.
I do not know where a man whose stranglehold and fiefhold on an off-cycle election that was promoted as the most toxic in recent time could, by same token, be invested with a garland in a war he lost woefully.And fought to win.
It is why the optics of an Ademola Adeleke profusely garlanding the president with a trophy he did not deserve have riled all men of good conscience. It was why many Osun State indigenes and electors have warned that giving the president an undeserved victory in a war he fought to its hilt was political gerrymandering taken beyond its ken.
Proponents of political rightness have however lauded the Osun governor for doing well. He is fighting for his political survival by being a fawner of the president. The APC owns the courts, the purse and the breath that oozes out of Nigerian states. It is why many governors today, not minding that they cannot stand what the APC stands for, were trafficked willy-nilly into the ruling party. Many of them have humongous skeletons in their cupboards which only membership of the president’s party could render irrelevant.
The ease with which Ademola Adeleke embraced same set of people who fought to “kill” himspeaks volumes. It beggars belief. It doesn’t explain why Tinubu’s fawning would come ahead of erecting monuments of martydom for those who were forcefully martyed for the governor’s victory. That he and his nephew – Davido – immediately threw selves into the embrace of the man who is a known enemy of Nigerian democracy and who last week boastfully claimed, in what looks like a faux-pas, to be Tinubu’s Mr Fix It – rigger of election – is a pointer to this.
As we walk into the 2027 elections, my advice to the Nigerian electors is to carefully choose their fights. As my musical idol, Ayinla Omowura, sermonised: It is not all leaves that the herbalist, who plucks leaves as herbs, cuts; nor is every palm tree worthy of being climbed by a palmwine tapper. Some leaves are poisonous. Some palm trees are home to lethal and poisonous snakes.
By the way, having won a second term, Governor Adeleke should prioritise areas he acknowledged in his acceptance speech that he couldn’t accomplish. Education, health and the architecture of governance are key. In this way, sunshine, Ìmólè, will indeed shine on the people of Osun State.
