2025 bye Elections: A wreath for opposition and signs of things to come

….As Tinubu takes the Trophy again

By Wole Olujobi

With drubbing in Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Ogun, Anambra and Kogi, among others, in the 2025 bye-elections to fill vacant positions in the National and State assembly seats, the effervescence that hitherto characterised the bloated ego that hallmarked the self-assured confidence in the camp of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) seems to be fleeting, as knell tolls for the coalition that has primed itself to seize the nation’s political space ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The rowdy mob of differing passions and interests in ADC consisting of elements in PDP led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party’s Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi of APC had recently announced ADC as the common platform to wrest power from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when they made a loud entrance into the nation’s political consciousness as a party intent on swirling and eclipsing the leading parties, such as the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), into unconsciousness and oblivion.

As ADC riots across the land in tough sinews to prove their strength, not a few observers reasoned that the tsunami that swept PDP out of power for APC’s ascendancy was being re-enacted by a new party that will take the wind out of the sail of APC and PDP in an impending political show-down that would throw overboard, in particular, the partisans that had been calling the shots since the PDP was shown the doors in the 2015 general elections.

That prospect was not far-fetched. What with the resignation of the PDP’s dandies and the forced pulling out of the platoons of breathless political soldiers at the Wadata Plaza Resettlement Centre after Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political and economic machines mowed down the anti-growth edifice that stood between Nigerians and their progress? What with the conclave of the Nigerian epicures in their proletarian garbs who have now found new home, a fluid home without any allegiance, to berth and swim with cell mates in ADC?

Before the bye-elections,  casual observers had thought that the endgame loomed for APC in the hands of emergency friends in ADC whose brotherhood is well-knit in a rebellious  confraternity of strange bedfellows that were united in faith-breach to sweep the carpet off the ruling party’s feet. As expected, Nigerians, who had been taught bitter lessons by the new congregants, made a wise choice, and like the brawling louts outside a curry house, spoke wisely with their thumbs, to stamp their authority in the control of their destinies for progress.

Beaten blue and black in bloodied nose, ADC was pummelled beyond the imaginations of its promoters, majority of whom were prime actors in the sorry state the nation has found herself. In unmistakable terms, the sorry fate in fools’ paradise beckoned. And like what the Yoruba people would call “igbaju, igbamu ti kerikeri mba r’ode”, (a relentless assault on “kerikeri”, a low-pitch drum, at public performance), egos in ADC were bruised and self-conceited aristocratic swagger took flight for a mob-cap to adorn the prince’s head in APC’s ambush, as the sceptre is gone to make do with distaff among the coalitionists.

In Anambra State home of Peter Obi, Emmanuel Nwachukwu of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) defeated Azuka Okwusa of APC, Donald Amamgbo of Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) and Christian Ubah of PDP.

Of note is the poor showing of ADC’s Amamgbo for whom Obi had campaigned vigorously. A video clip emerged on social media at the weekend purporting to show two booklets of ballot papers already thumb-printed in favour of ADC.

The booklets were allegedly intended to be smuggled into ballot boxes at Aguata High School, Ekwolobi. The result from Anambra proved conclusively that Obi is gradually slipping into a footnote of Anambra politics after Obidients Movement adherents refused to think with their feet this time around.

Obi, who is now desperately promoting ADC, had in the run-up to the election directed Labour Party members to vote for ADC, the party on which platform he hopes to contest the 2027  presidential election. But despite desperate mobilisation efforts, including alleged votes buying and illegal thumbprinting of ballot papers, ADC kissed the canvas.

Specifically, ADC supporters, facing  imminent humiliating rain of defeat, resorted to desperate underhand dealings, as some of its members were caught with pre-thumbprinted ballot papers at Aguata High School, Ekwolobi. The ballot papers, allegedly prepared for smuggling into the ballot box during the Anambra South Senatorial bye-election, were seized by security agents. A voice in a viral video at the weekend accused the INEC officials of conniving with ADC party agents in the election in which Donald Amamgbo was ADC’s candidate.

In Kaduna State, ADC’s doorman and joint general overseer of Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi and Peter Obi presidential crusade, Nasir El-Rufai, who has vowed to sink or sail in the coalition’s boat in his desperate plot to defeat President Tinubu, made do with the loose ends of his inane temperament over a desperate ministerial ambition that ended in fiasco.

El-Rufai, allegedly self-licensed to be a rebel, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, is a licentious political nomad and  devious workshop of the Cassius variety in SDP where the very busy and restless overseer breaks the air to still coordinate for other three men in various political parties.

Allegedly a piece of fluid entity and a scallywag only loyal to himself, according to Obasanjo, El-Rufai carries a heavy burden of a Goliath in David’s frame but without the sling to power his ambition.

Such is a dangerous adventure in the polity that has tens of hundreds of domestic rebels that are desperate to recover their destinies!

Flat on his belly, the loquacious El-Rufai has succumbed to the superior mass support of Kaduna people who prefer the humble and sanguine Governor Uba Sani and mass appeal of his party APC to ADC and its hirelings. Thus, El-Rufai’s bloated ego in his larger-than-life image of a bustling five-star General without troops was flatly deflated. And ever since the results emerged, el-Rufai has ducked and knitted himself tightly in his cocoon somewhere in the precincts of Kaduna or in the isolated third room in Abuja, according to reports.
For effect, Kaduna APC candidate in the Chikun/Kajuru Federal Constituency, Joseph Bagudu, and that of Zaria/Kewaye State Constituency, Mohammed, cruised to victory.

Their votes overshadowed those of Adanu Alexander of ADC and Dawaki Esther of PDP for Chikun/Kajuru as well as Isiyaku Kabir of ADC and Mamuda Abdullahi of PDP for Zaria/Kewaye.

El-rufai had rolled out his political machinery ahead of the bye-election in this area,  crisscrossing the various wards and spitting like cobra to canvass support for the ADC candidates. But all these were too weak, for the merciless APC, disdaining touting, breasted home to victory, leaving El-rufai to lick the wounds of his rebellious grandstanding.

Facing humiliation, the opposition in Kaduna also resorted to vote buying. The Police Command in Kaduna State said its operatives in collaboration the Department of State Services (DSS) and other security agencies arrested a suspected vote buyer ahead of the elections and recovered N30 million cash allegedly traced to PDP, which the party debunked, explaining that the money was for party agents.

In Edo State, after the polls returns, landslide victories came the way of APC’s  senatorial candidate in Edo Central, Joseph Ikpea;  and the party’s flag bearer in Ovia North East/Ovia South West Federal Constituency of the state, Omosede Igbinedion.

Omosede is the daughter of the Esama of Benin Kingdom, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion.
Omosede polled 450 votes while PDP and ADC got one vote each at the end of voting. Effectively, the Igbinedion dynasty, Governor Monday Okpebholo, APC State Chairman Jarret Tenebe, APC Women Leader Dr. Philomena Abieyuwa Eriyo,  Philip Shuaibu and other APC leaders ruthlessly closed John Oyegun and Godwin Obasaki’s political page in Edo history.

In Ogun State, Governor Dapo Abiodun beat his rival, PDP’s Ladi Adebutu, into unconsciousness with the massive votes for the APC House of Representatives candidate for Ikenne/Shagamu/Remo North, Adesola Elegbeji.

Ogun State PDP suffered double embarrassments, forcing it to resort to self-help, as members were caught in alleged attempt to bribe its way to victory.
The Ogun State Police spokesperson, CSP Omolola Odutola, confirmed in a statement that suspects were arrested in possession of N2.5 million Friday midnight by a police patrol team attached to the Iperu Remo Division. One of the arrested members, Joe-Stans Toryem, confessed that the money was collected at Kehoy Hotel, Iperu, from a man he referred to as “Political Solution.” Here, ADC was a resounding anonymity, as the party made no pretence of its existence.

In Adamawa State home of Nigeria’s record holder in presidential contests on a long list of various political parties, Atiku Abubakar; INEC declared the candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress, Misa Musa, as the winner of the Ganye State Constituency.
In all, APC swept in 12 Federal and state Constituencies as INEC released results across the 16 constituencies that participated in the bye-elections. According to the Premium Times online newspaper, the results also reflected a trend of ruling parties consolidating power in their states, except in Adamawa, where the APC upset PDP in Ganye Constituency to compound nightmare for Atiku and Babachir David Lawal.

For now, Babachir, who is one of the archdeacons in the ADC monastery, and who likes to maliciously ring his bells to eclipse Tinubu’s place in history, has been lying flat on his belly in the cold like a rattlesnake and has never been heard in the last four days after the results emerged, to suffer humiliation in the hands of Adamawa voters.

But it is not all tales of woes for the Babachirs, as his son, Suleiman Babachir Lawal, an estate developer, still has his feet firmly rooted in APC. Except that he will still struggle with the burden of placating his father and his godfather Atiku who are the latest casualties of the Adamawa’s thumbs of fury that rejected them at polls!

Now to former President Goodluck Jonathan! Will he still succumb to the alleged pressures by the coalition of rattled partisans to dust up his bowler hats to duel in a suicidal presidential contest that will directly pit him against Nigerians whose preference was tested and confirmed in the bye elections scattered across Nigeria that returned confidence vote for President Tinubu?

For sure, what we witnessed in the bye-elections will be a mere currant in the dumpling when APC takes battle to the 2027 general elections to register its dominance in Nigeria’s political space. For now, it is a humbling requiem for the generals without troops in Nigerian politics, as ADC factional Chairman, David Mark, himself an army general, perches on the wall like a rain-beaten lizard in a measured silence for the next move.
Nigerians are claiming their liberties and recovering their destinies. President Tinubu is consolidating his Hope Agenda to lift Nigerians out of poverty. God helps Tinubu and Nigeria in the tasks ahead.

• Olujobi, a journalist and politician, writes from Ado-Ekiti
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