Segun Showunmi
This reads more like frustration than fact. No one is strangulating political parties in Nigeria. What we are witnessing is the natural consequence of political competition colliding with accountability under the law.
People should be careful not to conflate personal political setbacks with a collapse of democracy. Political parties are not entitled to immunity from internal crisis, defections, or the consequences of poor strategic judgment. If anything, what is being exposed is a failure of opposition cohesion not the death of democratic space.
If ambition is no longer aligning with political reality, the honest course is to acknowledge the limits of one’s journey. Politics, like life, is generational. The younger cadre will inevitably come of age, and leadership is ultimately judged by what it has seeded in those coming behind. You cannot neglect that responsibility and then lament the outcomes when the moment shifts.
On the matter of investigations or enforcement actions, the principle is straightforward: those who have committed infractions must answer to the law. Public figures cannot be insulated from scrutiny simply because of political alignment or timing. Allegations of wrongdoing must be tested in accordance with due process not dismissed wholesale as persecution.
Equally, those who have abused the internal rules of their political parties or attempted to game the system must understand that consequences are part of institutional order. Law and party discipline are not instruments of oppression; they are the scaffolding of any functioning democracy.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not invent political contestation, nor is he responsible for the opposition’s inability to present a coherent alternative. A competitive system demands resilience, organization, and credibility not perpetual claims of victimhood.
Democracy is not weakened because the opposition is struggling; it is weakened when leaders refuse introspection and instead reach for alarmist rhetoric. Nigeria’s system remains open what is required is better politics, not louder accusations.
Otunba Segun Showunmi is convener of The Alternative
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