Adekunbi Ero
Anyone who witnessed firsthand or watched the video clip of the sheer political brigandage that took place in Benin City, Edo State, on Tuesday February 24, 2026, at the state secretariat of the African Democratic Congress and the private residence of John Odigie-Oyegun, a national leader of the party and former governor, and did not feel a righteous indignation, has a heart seared with a hot iron and is an enemy of Nigeria and our tottering democracy.
Like a horrific scene from an action movie, some hired muscles, armed to the teeth, stormed the two addresses with one motive – to hunt down some opposition ‘games’ constituting irritants and threat to the second term ambition of Emilokan President Bola Tinubu. But for timely intelligence that saved the day, global attention would have been on Nigeria for the elimination of key opposition figures, notably Peter Obi, who had been declared a persona non grata in the state by Governor Monday Okpebholo. But thank God he’s alive to tell his story.
Though the ruling APC had tried to spin the narrative, attributing it to an internal disagreement in the party the day before, only a demented mind would buy that hogwash. Just like the killers of Police Inspector Akor Onuh, attached to Okpebholo, then as APC governorship candidate, who died in an ambush of the convoy of erstwhile deputy governor, Philip Shaibu on July 18, 2024, were never apprehended even when they were known, the perpetrators of recent attacks may also never face justice because both have the imprimatur of government.
To be clear, on July 18, 2025, Okpebholo, at a political rally at Uromi, pointedly threatened Obi. He said, “The man wey say he nor get shishi, I am sending a direct message to him. There is a new sheriff in town. Tell Obi, he should not come to Edo without telling me because his security will not be guaranteed. Whatever happens to him in Edo State, he will take it. I am serious about it”.
Apart from asphyxiating the opposition, Tinubu is deploying everything in his political arsenal to gain an undue advantage. Examples. The appointment of partisan persons into INEC … and bypassing very senior officers to pick his ‘boy’, Olatunji Disu, …as the inspector general of police”.
So, with this undisguised threat which he arrogantly repeated when he commissioned the new Edo Line on July 25, 2025, where else should an uncompromised police force be beaming its searchlight if not on the government of the day? It is no mere coincidence that the witch cried in the night, and the child died in the morning. The fact is, Okpebholo is desperate, to the point of delusional and bizarre obsession to deliver Edo to Tinubu, promising a phantom 3.5 million votes as return on political IOU for gifting him the state.
That promise was first made in an interview with the TVC on November 28, 2025, during which he rabidly staked his political career, vowing to resign if Tinubu loses the 2027 election, a reckless vow he repeated in a recent interview with the African Independent Television (AIT) on Friday February 27, 2026.
In the TVC interview, he said “We promised 3.5 million votes, and we are not joking about it. …If he’d not win, I’d resign”. This is a red flag for the opposition – expect a do-or-die contest. Check this out. As of August 17, 2024, when INEC released the new voters register for Edo and Ondo States, the number of registered voters in Edo was 2,629,025, an increase of 4.9 percent from the 2, 501, 081 figure during the 2023 general elections. Interestingly, during the 2023 presidential election, the total votes cast stood at only 600, 395 with Obi garnering 331, 163, more than half of the votes, and Tinubu trailing behind in the second place with 144, 471 votes. Where then would the promised 3.5 million votes come from?
This is why well-meaning Nigerians must be worried about the brazen mayhem because it has a wider implication as the country heads to the polls in January 2026. It is a clear message to the candidates of other political parties that opposition politics is not welcome here. And now that Tinubu has deployed his Machiavellian political tactics to agglomerate 31 out of the 36 governors,including the Federal Capital Territory, into his political camp, there is restricted space for the opposition to thrive. The governors, with zero tolerance for opposition, would simply lock down their respective states for Tinubu and the APC.
As Rivers State governor, hybrid politician, Nyesom Wike, now Tinubu’s most valuable political henchman, did it in 2023 to frustrate his own party, the PDP and its candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who was not allowed to campaign in the state, and will re-enact it wUnless the opposition rises to the occasion, 2027 is already won and lost.
Unless the opposition rises to the occasion, 2027 is already won and lost.
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