Andy Ezeani
Tuesday, April 28,2026
There are various ways of interpreting President Bola Tinubu’s recent declaration that he is not scared of the opposition. One is that he is scared.
Being scared or not being scared reflects a frame of mind. It is a human sensation that, more often than not, finds expression in what is done more than what is said. It is substantially psychological.
The predominant disposition of the president and his party in recent times have been more of a people running scared rather than those at ease. A panic mode can easily be udentified with many actions and directives of the government in recent times.
Perhaps no other single entity exposes the uncommon depth of trepidation about the opposition for the Tinubu presidency than Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party and a potential foe in the future.
Containing Obi appears to be the most urgent and important task before the Tinubu presidency. The attention given to the raging insecurity in the land, or the energy crisis or stifling economic conditions, pale into insignificance when compared with the energy and single-mindedness committed to checkmating Obi.
In a season and environment where obsequiousness is a prime tool for survival, throwing gratuitous jabs at Obi has become a common means of pledging loyalty to President Tinubu. You can hardly find a more literal interpretation of the aphorism; all is fair in war… And now, politics.
Two incidents in two ends of the country, last week, captured in bold relief, the dread of Obi at the presidency and in the APC.
On Saturday, April 25,2026, opposition political parties, facing an unprecedented existential threat, gathered in Ibadan, Oyo State, for a summit of opposition political parties. Whether the summit was of significant value or merely symbolic remains to be seen.
By coincidence, Mr. Obi had been invited much earlier to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on the same day to deliver a lecture. He elected to go for the lecture first and thereafter drive to Ibadan to join the summit. Well, the lecture was aborted.
On the morning of the lecture, to which the university community was said to be excitedly looking forward to, the university authority, according to the statement from Obi himself, announced that the university would no longer host the lecture. Not much explanation was given. Obi headed to Ibadan.
The prospective audience at the university at Ile-Ife was simply prevented from hearing him.
A few months back, the presidential aspirant recounted, he had also been invited to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, his alma mater, to deliver a memorial lecturer in honour of Professor Frank Ndili, a revered former vice chancellor of the University.
The event was to hold under the auspices of the Frank Ndili family. On the morning of the event, after Obi had arrived Nsukka, the authority of the UNN, announced that the lecture would not hold on the campus.
Two federal universities, two scheduled lectures with different thematic focus. Both abruptly cancelled. Clearly, (Western) education is becoming increasingly dangerous.
Last week, Obi was scheduled to travel all the way to Chibok in Borno State on a philanthropic mission.
He had accepted a request to assist the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok.
The school came to global attention in 2014, when 276 girls were kidnapped in one fell swoop on April 14, by the terrorist group, Boko Haram, which has gained the appellation of the deadliest terrorist group in the world.
Twelve years after the calamity, Government Girls Secondary, Chibok remains wretched. It stands as an indictment to the government of the state and possibly to the federal government, which ought, at least, to have rehabilitated the school to boost its morale.
With a population of 2,500 students, Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, boasts of one computer. It also lacks many necessary facilities a government secondary school ought to have.
Shockingly, the APC government of Borno State refused to give clearance for Obi to visit the school to spend his money to help the Chibok school. When the approval did not come, Obi offered to go to Maiduguri, the state capital, to meet with the school authority and students to present them with his assistance. No way.
He then offered a sponsored trip to Abuja, to representatives of the students and teachers, to collect the computers and other materials. The State Ministry of Education refused to grant the school permission to travel to Abuja.
Finally, on April 23, 2026, a Chibok community delegation came to Abuja to meet with Obi. They collected laptops, printers, and other supplies, as well as the sum of N6 million he provided for borehole.
Reports had it that the state Ministry of Education issued an official query to the school leadership for embarrassing the state by exposing the handicap of the school. How, on earth, does an embarrassment feel embarrassed? Only in Nigeria, under the APC.
Nigeria parades a horde of politicians who appear every electoral season to contest for president or whatever office they fancy. Most of these, whether recycled and tired or relatively new, live for the season. They disappear thereafter.
Peter Obi commits enormous personal resources on humanitarian activities, on and off election season. Indeed, he appears to spend more on humanitarian services when he is not running for any office.
Schools and the lives at Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) bear testimony to his philanthropy. Why should that bother the presidency and the APC? Why are other politicians not standing up to match what he is doing?
Numerous communities and social institutions across the country need basic economic and social amenities, which governments have failed woefully to provide over time. Public-spirited citizens like Peter Obi should be courted, not discouraged, from coming to the rescue. There must be a limit to the deprivation visited on ordinary citizens.
For the governments that failed to meet the basic needs of the people to also frustrate independent philanthropic interventions amounts to a twofold injustice. Trying to prevent Obi from accessing federal or state grounds to speak or to extend a helping hand to needy communities is a new height of despotism. It portends danger.
Scotch earth policy, the type the Tinubu presidency and the APC are executing on Peter Obi, is a strategy commonly identified with any side that is losing ground in a battle.
Destroying bridges, food stores, farmland, and humanitarian supplies in order to prevent the advancement of an opponent is a statement in retreat. The disposition speaks loudly of being scared.
Worse than that, it is an attempt to destroy the humanity of the society on the altar of political expediency.
