Opinion
Adams Oshiomhole, Peter Obi and Nigeria of tomorrow
Did you hear of a certain governor that was given a proper beating by his best friend right inside his office due to the activities of his third leg? The story was that this particular man was the bestie of “His Excellency,” with whom they did a lot of escapades with other young girls in the state and elsewhere. But somehow the man was said to have missed that what the two of them were doing to other young girls, was going on right under his nose. His supposed friend was actually bedding his own daughter, whom the amniotic fluid had yet to dry on her head.
When he finally discovered, the man was said to have bid his time and chanced on the governor at a time he was supposed to be alone in his office. Walking past the governor’s unsuspecting aides, who did not bother him because they knew about his relationship with their oga, he quietly closed and locked the door and descended on the randy governor. Of course, because of the governor’s pint size, he was no match to his assailant’s heavy frame. It was when the din from the commotion inside became loud enough that the security eventually pulled down the door to rescue their master from his friend. By that time, the big oga was half-dead. But, somehow, because of the scandal, the incident was killed in a hush-hush, lest the world heard. Unfortunately not much harm came to the assailant because he was also a big gun.
Another story. This one I witnessed with my eyes. I was part of a group of reporters invited by a governor to his campaign flagoff. In the evening, we’re to have dinner with that governor. While we’re seated in his sitting room at night having a chat, we suddenly noticed a stream of hot-legged ladies in their various levels of undress or underdress, filing into the same living room. Our man nearly jumped out of his skin from embarrassment. The trepidation in his voice as he directed the courier or is it vendor of the unholy visitors to the proper room bviously betrayed how scandalised he felt. For this was a man, who at that point was pontificating about morality. How the gods chose that moment to expose and disgrace him, remains a mystery.
Again, and I think I’ve once told this story many times. It’s about a governor that was a personal friend. He was my friend before he became a governor, so, there were no airs between us. In public, I would address him in first or second person singular – Your Excellency or – His Excellency, depending which fitted the occasion. But outside there, it was his name, even his guy name. We were that close.
But how did we become sworn enemies even before his first tenure ended. I told him the truth. I respected his office, but I didn’t kowtow or genuflect before him nor fear him unlike many others including people far older who told him that he was next to god, even as they meant the opposite and said so immediately out of earshot.
Earlier in his years, he would always send for me to review some of his activities, especially those ones that were fundamental to real governance in his state. In fact, he made it clear to his aides to my hearing of course that I should have free access to him anytime I desired and needed no prior appointment to do so.
It was at such an occasion that he made a very strange declaration to me. No doubt, this my friend was so popular in the state at the beginning that virtually everyone sang his praises, because his policies and programmes were topnotch from the beginning, as he hit the ground running.
He told me, you see all these things I’m doing, it’s just for this period. In the next two years, I’ll use everything I have to prepare for my re-election and if it means importing soldiers from North Korea, I’ll do it. Shock was a minor word. I was practically stunned. I never expected such from such an educated man, who was doing so great at that moment.
But I didn’t waste time neither did I mince words. But you don’t need any soldier from anywhere. You’re doing well already, I told him. Hold election today, it will be a walk in the park for you, I emphasised. His reply, was, my friend, you don’t know politics. Of course, just as he told me in that early encounter, my friend did exactly as he said.
It started gradually – from one uncanny act to the other, from one anti-people policy to the other, the degeneration began. By the time it came to his re-election period, he truly needed those North Korean soldiers to push himself back to office. From open thuggery to bare-faced impunity – breaking bones and backs of anyone that as much as made of whimper of challenge including those of the state legislature and even elders of the state amongst them, governors before him, to the extent that the state witnessed a harvest of strange murders that were all suspected to be political with many fingers pointing at him.
Not surprising that my friend started fencing me, because, outside noticing my aversion for his activities, I actually reported them in the cause of my duty as a journalist enjoined me. The only luck I had in the end was that I was not harmed, even though I was caught one way or the other in the crossfire of live bullets from the verbal and political weapons flying around.
It was later that I got to know that my good friend was himself a victim of circumstances. When he told me that I didn’t understand politics, he was only speaking in parables. What I didn’t know, because he did not tell me, was that there were higher forces. He was already under some form of threat from Abuja, because the money he was using to create all the feats in his state initially, in the calculation of his traducers, neither belonged to him nor the state. It belonged to those powers. It was money to be shared. Who needed his good work, when there were huge valleys of greed to fill? So, while he was getting popular in his state making headlines as performing governor, he was practically annoying some big guns elsewhere.
This reality was not only brought home to him, but the consequences as well. He must have been told that the only way he would return to power was to hand over the purse of the state to Abuja, – party bigwigs and of course, Villa Men. Else! It was a matter of making his choice – a matter of either or.
What this particular experiences teach me is never take anything on the facelift in politics, be it in Nigeria or elsewhere. But since we live in Nigeria, it is pertinent to note that whenever someone, especially a politician, Nigerian politician is making a statement, or strenuously fighting for something, be sure there is a bigger reason pushing the person.
Yes! Each time a typical Nigerian politician speaks, look closely. He’s speaking from the standpoint of greed or from the complete loss of his humanity and decency. Ask yourself the type of human being that would be sleeping with the daughter of his closest friends with whom he shares everything, even of deepest secrets. It must be somebody that has lost his soul completely. It is the same when greed is the motivation. Ask yourself why a man, would continue stealing after having stolen so much.
Indeed, in the home of some of these people, everything they own from the pin to the exotic furniture to their luxury cars, are the proceeds of mindless pillaging of the peoples commonwealth. Yet, they remain relentless. Else, tell me how a man who has stolen N1billion, which is N100million into 10 places from the public till will continue stealing. But that’s what you find. The same man steals 10, 100 and more and continues. He has estates in Abuja, he has estates in Port Harcourt, he has estates in Lagos, he has estates in Warri, yet he’s still stealing! That’s how greed drives people to madness.
So, don’t be surprised at the fixation of some political hounds in the country on Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State and now presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP). I’m not, because I know where they are coming from. After all, which other clime outside Africa, particularly Nigeria, would permit the level of official, monumental and free for all thievery going on in the country at the moment? You may have heard how oil thieves from the moon, arrive Nigeria, load barges with crude, put them in their breastpockets and disappear.
In one recent case, one of such vessels was reportedly apprehended in Equatorial Guinea. Now, did you hear the official explanation? Wait! The vessel was chased out of Nigerian waters by security operatives and was about to be caught when it landed into the said country. You’ll know how fast a ship laden with 300,000 would be moving that even a speedboat would not catch up with it. But then, this is Nigeria.
So, when you hear Adams Oshiomhole, descend on Obi in the manner he just did, last week, you ought to know from whence he’s travelling from. This was a mere tailor at a garment factory. Today, without any inventing a machine that would package Ewa Agoin and bread into an international snack or any other unique invention to his name outside transmuttng from union leader to the government house as a governor, he has become one of the reference points when life and living in opulence is in issue.
You may have heard how he now lives in a mansion that could only be compared to that of the late Michael Jackson’s palatial Neverland Ranch in California in his Iyamho, Auchi, Edo State village, complete with top-roof swimming pool, private lakes and forest for hunting. That is a fraction in what is now associated to him. So, when last Sunday, you heard the former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), telling participants the party’s Youth Summit in Abuja that Obi was bad news, you’ll not be surprised. Who wouldn’t do everything to protect the road to such stupendous luxury. Never mind gory story behind it.
Hear him: “For those of you who are social media warriors, go to google and look at the first six months of Governor Willie Obiano’s administration in Anambra state. What you are going to find on YouTube is Governor Obiano using bulldozers to demolish the homes of kidnappers and those involved in Bakassi boys and Bakassi girls. Who was the governor when Bakassi developed in Anambra State? Who solved the problem? If a man could not fix the security challenges in Anambra State, which requires courage, how can he convince you that he will fix security all over Nigeria? Don’t take it from me, go to YouTube. I don’t want to look for trouble, I am a small man, anybody can deal with me.
“If he had solved the security problem, would Obiano be demolishing people’s houses, the houses of kidnappers? When he says, ‘I will fix Nigeria ask him, have you fixed your state? He calls himself a trader, what trade does he do? Importing or exporting? What does he import? Find out. You’ll know those brutalising the economy.”
Now, did Obi bring Bakassi Boys to Anambra? No! The dreaded group was the solution Obi’s last but one predecessor, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, tried to employ to eradicate the crippling menace of criminality in the state. Even Chris Ngige, who took over from him did not meet the head hunters, who left Anambra reeling from the dizzying effects of their escapades of open execution of their victims.
Until he left office, Obi battled the owners of Upper Class Hotel in Onitsha, where three human heads were allegedly discovered, which was one amongst the series of such drastic measures meant to chase away kidnappers in the state, in fulfillment of the law he got the House of Assembly to pass, one of which was to demolish the buildings belonging to perpetrators of such high crimes.
All these facts were there for Oshiomhole at the tap of a button. But no! This is a threat that must be put down by all means. Why not, what manner of public official would reject the type of official perks in the manner of the former Governor of Anambra State had done. This was a man as chairman of a bank refused to move into Victoria Island or Ikoyi where his contemporaries resided, but chose to remain in his modest Festac apartment.
How could you, as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reject a whopping N500million, official cars and house, attached to your office and decide to operate on your own. Surely, this is unheard of. This is bad news for Nigeria, because others might learn from him and it would become a trend.
Don’t forget that at the time both of them were governors, Obi was recorded as the lone voice that encouraged the Federal Government to save money made from the high cost of crude during the time of former President, Goodluck Jonathan, while the group led by Oshiomhole insisted that it was already raining and that nothing should be saved.
Yet, the same Obi was to exemplify what he preached by saving over N75billion surplus for Anambra, while Oshiomhole, left debts of over N800billion debt for Edo State out of which N70billion was owed contractors. While Oshiomhole owed over six years arrears of pension and gratuities, Obi cleared N35billion in pension arrears, left zero debt. While Oshiomhole paid himself N200 million severance package with a house worth over N300 million, Obi, neither took anything nor got anything in and out of office.
So, when next time you hear from Oshiomhole, never be surprised what his fears are. Well over 70, he probably thinks he could live forever, forgetting that there was once a Mr. Fix it, who ones acted as if he had the power of life and death. By the way, have you forgotten that it was the selfsame Oshiomhole that once told the world that a Minister in Jonathan’s cabinet, took away $6billion in one day. Imagine a mind that could conjure such monumental fabrication. Think of what such a mind could do and how low it could go!
By Bayo Onanuga
With politicking intensifying ahead of the January 2027 election, opposition politicians have escalated their campaign of misinformation and calumny to diminish the impact and achievements of this administration over the last three years.
Two years ago, when the administration was struggling to deal with the unintended consequences of its historic reforms, the campaign would have made sense. But not anymore, as the administration can rightly claim bragging rights for what it has achieved against all odds and why the international community is applauding it for putting Nigeria irrevocably on the path of growth and development.
The impact of the three-year-old government is best felt at the subnational level – state and local levels. States that hitherto were unable to pay salaries by May 2023, with months of unpaid obligations to their workers and pensioners, are now doing so with ease and dreaming big about infrastructure. In every state I have visited, I have seen this development. Ogun, my state, Oyo, Nasarawa, Enugu, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, and others have witnessed development projects spring up, thanks to President Tinubu’s re-engineering of the federation’s finances and increased allocation to the states. When local councils begin to receive their allocations directly from the Federation Account, the Tinubu effect will ensure that more governance cascades down to the 774 local councils.
State governors who have benefited from this policy have openly admitted that increased allocations have enabled them to bring social and infrastructural development to their states. Many opposition PDP governors who joined the APC did so for this reason—not for the baseless claim that President Tinubu bribed them. Governor Abdulrazak said in December 2024 that his administration embarked on more projects in the first 18 months of Tinubu’s presidency than in his first four years. The Governor of Ebonyi, Nwifuru, who is building iconic underpasses and overpasses in Abakaliki, credited his ambition to President Tinubu. Governor Peter Mbah similarly attested to this, crediting the Naira rain from the centre for his programmes. And Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule, who understands how Tinubu’s financial re-engineering and the end of the subsidy regime have increased the states’ fortunes, said President Tinubu “has taken the bullets for all of them.”
In May 2023, President Tinubu inherited acute petrol scarcity, an unsustainable petrol subsidy regime due to expire in June 2023, multiple exchange rates, arbitrage, and low revenue, with at least 30 states unable to pay workers, let alone fund infrastructure and social projects. Debt servicing consumed 97 per cent of Federal revenue. Additionally, food scarcity and inflation plagued the country as farmers abandoned their fields, recording massive losses amid the currency squeeze introduced by former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.
President Tinubu, guided by the Renewed Hope Agenda, wasted no time. He threw the ruinous subsidy out of the window from Day One. Days later, he floated the Naira and ended the artificial fixing of the Naira-to-dollar exchange rate, a system that had enabled well-connected individuals to profit effortlessly. Tinubu declared a food emergency and announced the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms to examine our outdated tax laws, some of which date back to the colonial era. Immediate gains included encouraging dry-season farming, with subsidies and inputs provided for farmlands abutting dams and irrigation sites in at least 14 states.
Even by President Tinubu’s admission, the early months and the first year were tough as the government implemented its programme. The cost of living went up, and businesses claimed the harmonised exchange rate had put them in the red. A few companies even closed shop and left our shores. On the streets, some Nigerians claimed that the policies have left them hungry, a sentiment the opposition still parrots to this day, without any empirical proof. If not sure of the salience of his reforms, President Tinubu would have taken a reverse gear in fright and abandoned all the new reform policies amid the avalanche of attacks from critics and opposition elements in the media. Instead, he persisted.
Two years after the first challenging year, the story has changed for good. However, some opposition elements are stuck in the sentiment of 2023/24, unyielding and adamant about acknowledging the many gains and milestones achieved by the Tinubu administration. But only the blind will fail to admit that this government has taken the country miles away from the state it inherited in 2023.
The stock market is clear proof of the administration’s economic success. In May 2023, Tinubu met the All-Share Index at 53,000 points and the market capitalisation at N30 Trillion. Today, the ASI has risen five times, to a record 250,000 and a market capitalisation of N160 Trillion. Blue-chip companies, including those initially negatively impacted by government policies, are declaring record profits and dividends. Equally, foreign portfolio investors are flocking in to partake in the Nigerian boom. This is not a bubble. It shows that a fundamental paradigm shift has occurred in the economy, all thanks to the Tinubu administration’s policy direction.
In recent weeks, I revisited the manifesto and policy ambitions that won us the election. The Tinubu administration has faithfully implemented its Renewed Hope Agenda, striving to resolve in three years the cumulative problems of decades.
Roads that will outlast this generation are being built nationwide. I recently went home to Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, and was amazed that the highway to my town from the Shagamu intersection now has a concrete pavement, thick enough to withstand the traffic of trailers from the West to the East. The most audacious road projects ever undertaken by any administration since independence are the Illela-Sokoto-Badagry and the Lagos-Calabar coastal superhighways. President Shehu Shagari conceived the Sokoto-Badagry highway in the early 80s. Succeeding administrations, afraid of the huge cost, abandoned the road. The Lagos-Calabar has also been on the map for decades, but no leader has ever dared to turn the idea into reality. President Tinubu has proven to be a transformative leader who has decided to turn the roads into reality, adding new roads to our road network for the first time, beyond those we inherited from the colonialists. Myopic critics of the two roads have assailed the Tinubu administration for taking loans to accomplish them. How else could the roads have been built if we rely only on FG’s share from FAAC? Relying solely on federal allocations would mean waiting 50 years or more, with costs ballooning out of reach, as in the metro-rail to nowhere started by presidential aspirant Rotimi Chibuke Amaechi in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. In the states, governors are building roads of similar standards. I saw some of these in Ogun, Kaduna, Ebonyi and Enugu.
As with roads, the Tinubu administration is also investing heavily in rail transportation, with the Kaduna-Kano-Gusau-Maraadi rail network scheduled for completion next year. City rail networks in Kaduna, Lagos, Kano and Enugu have been approved for construction, along with the Lekki-Ibadan rail.
When historians write about the Tinubu administration in 2031, they will not remember it only for audacious road and rail networks, but also for historic reforms. The oil and gas sector is one area in which the administration has impacted the country. Apart from ending the regime of wasteful subsidies, the government has instituted reforms that have made the sector attractive to fresh investment. International Oil Companies(IOCs) that once shunned our country are returning with billions of dollars in investment. Domestic refining and the innovative Naira-for-crude policy are ensuring energy security, thereby avoiding acute scarcity arising from the disruptive war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. More recently, the administration enacted a policy requiring the NNPC to remit oil sales proceeds to the Federation account.
Confronted by the administration’s stellar performance, the opposition and media propagandists dredged up a campaign video of the President promising a 24/7 power supply. They distorted his words. What he actually said was: “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you will have electricity, and you will not pay for an estimated bill anymore. A promise made will be a promise kept. If I don’t keep the promise and I come for a second term, don’t vote for me, unless I give you adequate reasons why I couldn’t deliver.”
What the distorters failed to admit was that the Discos, privatised since 2013 by President Goodluck Jonathan, are responsible for delivering power to the end consumers, not the Federal Government. What this government has done in the last three years has been to address the problems hindering the capacity of Discos to deliver, such as bringing Siemens to strengthen the grid, activating idle GENCOs, and planning to clear the N4 trillion legacy debts owed to GENCOs and GASCos, which will encourage new investments in the sector. The government has also massively implemented its metering policy, providing over 2.5 million meters to homes. Recently, the Tinubu administration announced the establishment of GAMCO, the Grid Asset Management Company, which will optimise power supply and activate idle facilities.
One of the administration’s impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, is the introduction of NELFUND and CREDICORP in 2024. While Credicorp is making loans available to civil servants to buy Made-In-Nigeria products, NELFUND, with N282 billion committed so far, has made tertiary education more accessible for our children. About 1.6 million Nigerian students have benefited. Payment of school fees and stipends is assured for the children, and the government has also renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, such that in the last three years, our universities, along with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, have been spared the disruptive academic strikes. Let’s give the Tinubu government some slack: a four-year programme is now a four-year programme. He promised it during the campaign and has delivered. The government has also invested in technical schools, offering students pursuing vocational education allowances. In the universities, TETFUND is once again funding research grants for dons willing to pursue ideas that will be useful to our society.
Among impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, are NELFUND and CREDICORP, introduced in 2024. Credicorp makes loans available to civil servants for Made-In-Nigeria products, while NELFUND, with N282 billion committed, has made tertiary education more accessible. About 1.6 million students have benefited. School fees and stipends are assured, and the government has renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, sparing universities from disruptive strikes. Today, a four-year programme in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education is completed in four years. Technical schools offer allowances to vocational students, and TETFUND is funding research grants to academics.
It has not been all rosy the past three years, especially in the area of making our people safe from the band of bandits and terrorists. While the armed forces have been locked in an asymmetrical war against these heartless elements, neutralising their leaders and foot soldiers in several theatres of conflict, the displaced terrorists are attacking vulnerable areas in some of the states, killing and kidnapping. The government is unrelenting in providing the armed forces, intelligence agencies, and police with the tools they need to wage the war. With support from friendly governments like the US, France, and the UK, there is hope that the menace of kidnappers and their political sponsors will become history. The man who has taken the bullets to make Nigeria survive a fiscal disaster is even more willing to take additional bullets to make all Nigerians safe.
Onanuga is Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy
By Hon Eseme Eyiboh
Let us begin with a confession. There is something unsettling about a politician who no longer appears to struggle.
In the turbulent theatre of Nigerian politics, where noise is often mistaken for relevance, where primaries resemble wrestling contests and delegate management demands the instincts of a hostage negotiator, a man who walks in unopposed does not merely win. He transforms the entire contest into a rehearsal.
On Monday, May 18, 2026, at Methodist Primary School, Ukana, in Essien Udim Local Government Area, Senator Godswill Akpabio did exactly that. No contest. No drama. No nervous counting of votes. He simply emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District without a single challenger.
While many politicians remain trapped in the exhausting rituals of horse trading, factional bargaining, and survival politics, Akpabio’s good works delivered something far rarer in Nigeria’s political environment than gold itself. Absolute consensus.
To the casual observer, an unopposed return may suggest the absence of competition. That would be a dangerously shallow interpretation.
Those familiar with the political phenomenon long associated with the “Uncommon Transformer” understand the distinction clearly. An unopposed ticket does not mean nobody desired to contest. Politics naturally attracts ambition the way light attracts insects. Power always generates interest. Influence always provokes aspiration.
What an unopposed return truly means is far more significant: potential challengers surveyed the landscape, studied the numbers, weighed the networks, measured the emotional connection between the man and the political structure around him, and quietly concluded that the road to victory simply did not exist.
There is a profound difference between lack of opposition and the collapse of viable opposition
Why is there no road to victory for others? Because what Akpabio has built in Akwa Ibom State in general and Akwa Ibom North West in particular is no longer merely a political structure. It is a fortress. Its walls are not made of concrete. They are made of cultivated loyalty. Enduring networks. Strategic generosity. And the unspoken understanding that confronting him politically is not simply difficult. It is often futile and absurd.
The atmosphere at the ward centre resembled less a political exercise and more a carnival of affirmation. Supporters, community leaders, women groups, youths, and party faithful gathered not to determine an outcome but to endorse a grace carrier already settled in the public imagination. The votes were counted without end. The votes were celebrated.
Here is the remarkable part.
The whispers surrounding Akpabio’s dominance do not come only from admirers. They come from seeming opponents too.
They do not fear his voice. They fear his results. They do not tremble at confrontation. They confront something more sobering: the recognition that within his political territory, the arithmetic has been solved with almost clinical precision.
While others are still assembling coalitions, Akpabio consolidated his long ago. While rivals continue calculating delegate figures, he has already moved to the next question: what happens after victory? How does political power translate into enduring relevance and measurable impact?
That is the distinction between a career politician and a political architect. One chases office. The other shapes the terrain on which the chase itself occurs.
Since assuming office as President of the 10th Senate, Akpabio has projected a measure of stability within the Red Chamber. That should not be understated.
The Nigerian Senate has earned a reputation for turbulence over the years. Leadership rebellions. Internal fractures. Floor dramas that generate headlines while weakening governance and social democratic structures. Against that backdrop, a Senate President capable of maintaining institutional stability without recurring crises becomes more than merely effective. He becomes uncommon.
His admirers see in him a politician who has consistently combined institutional authority with emotional loyalty from his base through the National to International arena. From Governor to Minister to Senate President, his rise is framed as the journey of a man who understood tomorrow before others arrived there. A politician deeply conscious of timing, alignment, and the delicate craft of converting social capital into durable influence and uncommon power (political capital).
This point matters enormously. Political capital is easy to squander. This point matters enormously. Political goodwill is easy to destroy. Many politicians exhaust it through arrogance, exclusion, or the endless pursuit of personal advantage. But Akpabio appears to understand something deeper about leadership: goodwill grows when people genuinely feel seen, valued, included, and carried along.
Over the years, he has cultivated relationships not merely through politics, but through accessibility, generosity of spirit, loyalty to associates, and an unusual ability to make people feel remembered even in the midst of high office. That is why his support structure often appears less like a coalition held together by convenience and more like a community bound by shared experience and enduring personal connection.
What some interpret merely as political dominance may actually be the long-term harvest of sustained human investment.
And perhaps that explains the ease with which the field gradually cleared around him. Not because opposition was forcibly silenced, but because many within the political environment saw little wisdom in disrupting a consensus built around continuity, stability, experience, and an existing relationship of trust.
His commitment to continue working closely with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Umo Eno reinforces a broader message of continuity and strategic alignment. At a time when fragmentation remains the temptation of many ambitious actors, Senator Akpabio has chosen coordination. That is not a weakness. It is political arithmetic.
And this is where the conversation shifts from the present to the near future. The same political capital that secured his senatorial return without resistance is not a one-use currency. It accumulates. It compounds. The goodwill he has cultivated, the equilibrium he has maintained, and the pragmatic preference for results over rhetoric are not merely tools for another Senate term. They form the foundation of something larger and forthcoming.
The crystal ball is not required to observe the trajectory. A Senate President who secures his own return effortlessly, stabilises a chamber historically associated with instability, aligns himself with the centre of national power grid while maintaining grassroots legitimacy, is a Senate President who has solved one of Nigerian politics’ most difficult equations.
He has demonstrated to his colleagues that he can deliver. He has shown the party hierarchy that he can be trusted. He has reassured constituents that proximity to power has not disconnected him from them.
This combination is rarer than any single attribute standing alone. So when the 11th Senate eventually convenes and the question of leadership emerges once again, the conversation may prove shorter than many anticipate. Not because there will be no interested contenders. There always are. But because the arithmetic of loyalty, institutional experience, strategic alignment, and demonstrated political capacity will already have completed its quiet work.
Akpabio has not formally declared interest in leading the 11th Senate. He does not need to. The declaration already exists in the pattern of his movements, the stability of his stewardship, and the political field he has cleared without visible strain. It is simply the discipline of reading political signs as they present themselves* .
In the end, Nigerian politics rewards those who understand the people more deeply than those who merely master performance and noise.That is not sentimentality. It is a political reality.
A politician capable of delivering his constituency without violence, panic, or emergency intervention is a politician who understands something fundamental: power is never truly declared. It is demonstrated. And it is demonstrated most convincingly when nobody steps forward to challenge it.
On that Monday in Ukana, the drums rolled. Praises echoed across the gathering. And the political message arrived without ambiguity. In Akwa Ibom North West, the conversation has moved beyond opposition. What remains is an audience waiting to see the next chapter unfold without ceasing.
Senator Godswill Akpabio has once again reminded observers that in certain political spaces, dominance is not always loud.
Sometimes, it is simply complete. And in the intricate chessboard of Nigerian politics, where many players are still learning how the pieces move, that level of mastery remains rare, consequential, and deeply potent.
The man who saw tomorrow understood something else too. The loudest voice in the room is rarely the one that prevails.
The one that prevails is the one that no longer needs to shout because everybody already understands. And that is what Senator Godswill Akpabio has demonstrated that he is the man who saw tomorrow.
Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh mnipr is a former member and Spokesperson of the House of Representatives and currently Special Adviser, Media/Publicity and official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate
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