OPINION: NIGERIA IS NOT YOUR WAR ZONE: A DOCUMENTED WARNING TO POLITICIANS BEFORE 2027

By Sleek Ogbo-Ogwo, Public Affairs Analyst

Nigeria is not dying. She is being murdered — with words, with caps, with sermons, and with the arrogance of a political class that believes the rest of us are spectators.

In the last few weeks, four incidents have laid bare the blueprint some people have for 2027. Intimidation, religious profiling, and the open bragging that votes do not count. Let us examine them in context, not in anger.

In January 2026, Wike’s aide Lere Olayinka wrote, “In Osun State, Wike’s influence will still give President Tinubu more votes than Ajibola Basiru.” The message was clear. Federal power could be deployed.

Then after the August 15, 2026 Osun governorship election, Minister Wike made a remark that should chill every democrat. He implied that he could have helped the APC win Osun if President Tinubu had allowed him. The candidate of the ADC won. Yet instead of congratulating the process, a sitting FCT Minister was posturing as the man who withheld victory for the ruling party.

That is the most dangerous insinuation of all. By saying “I could have helped APC win,” Wike is confessing that elections are not decided by voters, but by backroom deals and the permission of Abuja power brokers. It insults the Osun people. Four million voters came out, queued, and chose. To reduce their mandate to “Wike could have changed it” is to call them irrelevant. It also corrupts governance. A Minister of the Federal Republic should be building roads in the FCT, not acting as an election fixer. The moment ministers see themselves as vote vendors, democracy dies.

President Tinubu himself had cautioned before the poll that nothing ought to be done to give an impression that any agency of the federal government is being used to interfere with the election. Wike’s post-election boast directly contradicts that. It tells Nigerians, we had the keys, we chose not to turn them. That is not politics. That is blackmail of the electorate.

On August 11, 2026, Senator Francis Fadahunsi addressed APC supporters in Ilesa. Speaking in Yoruba, he said, “From now on, whenever you see Accord members, kill them. I authorise you to kill them. They have wives and children too.” He dared the crowd to record him. The Osun Police Command summoned him for threatening, inciting and intimidating comments. A Magistrate Court ordered investigation. CSOs warned it could heighten tension, suppress voter turnout and undermine the legitimacy of the poll. His defense was, “Kill Osun Accord with Votes, Not Violence,” a metaphor.

But metaphor or not, words kill. In a state that still remembers 1983, telling young men to kill opponents is arson. If your message cannot survive without the word kill, then your message is violence.

On August 9, 2026, at a Jama’atu Izalatil Bid’ah Wa Iqamatus Sunnah gathering in Kano attended by Governors Abba Yusuf and Umar Namadi, Sheikh Sani Jingir told the crowd, “Let’s show the infidels their limit, who claim they are more populous than us in Nigeria. They are lying.” He praised the Muslim-Muslim ticket as a purely Muslim-Muslim coalition. CAN’s Rev. Joseph Hayab condemned the use of “infidel” as derogatory and capable of deepening religious tension, noting it was said in the presence of three governors, and they were all smiling. The NHRC called for arrest. Pastor Paul Enenche said such people belong either in prison or a psychiatric hospital.

This is politics in a cassock. To reduce more than 100 million Christians to infidels while campaigning for votes is to weaponize religion. And the retaliatory burning of Kwankwasiya caps in Kano that followed shows how fast sermons become street violence.

What binds all of this is the belief that Nigerians are fools. It is instructive that this minimal percentage of Nigerians who belong to the political class have unfortunately taken the rest of us, the greater majority of highly intellectual and enlightened Nigerians, for granted. They think we didn’t hear the influence tweet. They think we didn’t see the kill video. They think we didn’t watch the infidels sermon. They think we didn’t hear the I could have helped APC win brag. They think hunger, tribe, and religion will make us forget they are mortgaging our future while flying private jets on our treasury. They are wrong.

Politics is not war. Politics is service. The moment you turn PVCs into bullets, pulpits into podiums for hate, and ministries into campaign war rooms, you have signed the death warrant of the nation.

Let this be recorded. The August 15, 2026 Osun governorship election was a rehearsal. Despite the EFCC freezing state accounts days to the poll, despite threats, despite influence, the people voted. President Tinubu said the election must be transparent, free and fair, and that Osun should serve as a test of INEC’s preparedness for the 2027 general elections. Osun proved that when the people are enlightened and united, no amount of influence can steal their mandate.

To Minister Wike, influence is earned at the ballot, not announced in post-election interviews. Stop treating democracy like a switch you can turn on or off. To Senator Fadahunsi, if your campaign needs the word kill, retire it. To Sheikh Jingir, Nigeria is not a mosque or a church. It is a Nigerian Republic. To those burning caps, today it is fabric. Tomorrow it will be blood. Is that the legacy you want?

Refrain now. Before you burn down the house we all live in.

2027 is coming. And it will shock you. The teachers in Abia, the traders in Kano, the nurses in Enugu, the tech boys in Lagos, the farmers in Benue, the enlightened majority, are watching. We will answer not with violence, but with PVCs. And that answer will echo for generations.

Nigeria does not belong to APC, ADC, PDP, LP, AD, NDC or NNPP. Nigeria belongs to Nigerians. And we are done being treated as fools.

God bless Nigeria.