AA vs OK: When the Mask Finally Fell
By Bagudu Mohammed
For long, the ADC and NDC have been trapped in a careful choreography of political correctness. The unwritten code was simple: treat President Bola Tinubu as the common enemy and spare each other. If the Presidency attacked Peter Obi’s NDC, Atiku’s ADC would fire back, and vice versa. It was less strategy than performance.
Drawing from Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, politics here became front-stage acting of two oppositions managing a divided public sentiment with the illusion that either side could step down for the other.
But that romance was always unsustainable. It required suspension of ambition.
Kwankwaso, as we all know, is not Peter Obi. Obi is naturally reserved, almost to a fault. He endured unprovoked, offensive outbursts from Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate under Labour, and still maintained cordiality. He still holds Atiku in high regard, bound by their shared history as running mates under the PDP.
Kwankwaso is different. He is a political realist in the Machiavellian sense: brute, blunt, and allergic to sentimental alliances. He took on Ganduje, he took on Ibrahim Shekarau, and he has now taken on a political godson in a showdown few godfathers in Nigeria would dare. There is a strong suspicion among close watchers that Kwankwaso inspired Peter Obi’s early exit from the ADC before it was too late. We had speculated then that nothing could prevent Atiku from seizing the ticket despite denials wrapped in motivational speeches. Rotimi Amaechi knows better.
It was Kwankwaso who broke that inconvenient, unsustainable public performance when he dared Atiku to step down for Peter Obi because, in his words, it is the turn of the South, not the North. That singular statement triggered the familiar weapon of Nigerian politics: blackmail as a tool to cast suspicion, exploit fear and mobilize cynicism.
In mid-October 2026, the national picture crystallized. The Kano chapter merely mirrored a national ADC offensive. Kwankwaso, now Vice Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress to Peter Obi, had said on Channels Television that Atiku should step down for Obi and dismissed the Vice Presidential slot as a spare tyre. The ADC Presidential Campaign Council, through its Director of Media and Publicity Kola Ologbondiyan, responded with fury, accusing Kwankwaso of advancing Tinubu’s interest, of being self-serving and positioning for 2031, and boasting that Atiku can win Kano without Kwankwaso, citing Buhari’s wins in 2003 and 2007.
Locally in Kano, the narrative was stretched further: that Kwankwaso was sacrificing the Kano NDC governorship ticket and splitting the Kwankwasiyya vote to gift the state to Tinubu and the APC. Yesterday on X, Kwankwaso fired back, calling it deliberate mischief designed to portray the NDC as a proxy for the APC.
To argue that Obi and Kwankwaso are not in the contest to win, that they are working for the APC, is to indulge in what psychologists call motivated reasoning, seeing only what confirms your fear. It is the last thing both Atiku and Obi should do.
Social identity theory as espoused by Henri Tajfel teaches us that when group identity is threatened, people resort to out-group demonization. That is exactly what is happening.
It amounts to political naivety to dismiss Peter Obi, whose popularity today is comparable to what Muhammadu Buhari enjoyed in the North, a cult-like, cross-class movement that no longer needs permission to exist.
As Richard Joseph argued in his work on prebendal politics, charisma in Nigeria often outlives party structure. Obi is no longer free to deputize, and no serious analyst expects him to.
It also amounts to condescension to deny the structural reality that the Igbo remain the most politically marginalized among Nigeria’s major tripod. It is that historical grievance, as analyzed by Larry Diamond in his studies of ethnicity and democracy, that fuels the rally behind Obi and other minorities who fear complete exclusion under a Northern ADC ticket. Entitlement is not a strategy.
While I acknowledge Kwankwaso’s principled and difficult decision as one that favours pan-Nigerian credentials needed to rebuild the Nigerian project, I also read his departure from the norm as deeply calculated. It is rooted in emotional intelligence and a newfound humility that is not misplaced.
Groupthink and suspicion of him are fueled by the simple fact that he is older, more experienced and, as James March’s organizational learning theory reminds us, teaches leaders when to defect from a losing coalition.
I have argued before that Peter Obi could do better than Atiku’s ADC, judging from his rising national influence that crosses beyond his immediate region, unlike Atiku whose present popularity does not extend beyond the North. I also argued that it was the PDP structure and close to eleven governors that made Atiku outperform Labour Party in 2023, a party barely known until Obi defected to it.
Even the fact that Kwankwaso’s son is the running mate to Gwarzo of NDC in Kano does not convince the deniers. The INEC outcome of not listing NDC Kano governorship candidates is more a personal loss to the family. Then why should ADC cry more than the bereaved, when it should ordinarily be happy to inherit the Kwankwasiyya votes?
The bitter public fight between Abba Yusuf and Kwankwaso and their supporters is too raw, too wild to be dismissed as stage-managed. As Niccolo Machiavelli warned in The Prince, the theatre of loyalty is most believable when it bleeds in public.
The truth is that both ADC and NDC are living in denial. They view Tinubu as the common enemy without willingness to scrutinize each other’s policies and utterances, which in substance are not different from what scholars call rainbow coalition politics by believing they can win without outdoing one another, wanting to eat their cake and have it.
You cannot win by defeating Tinubu’s APC alone while playing big brother to every other opposition, even when their policies directly contradict yours. That contradiction itself is a vote of no confidence, no different from the one you express for the ruling party.
This is analysis, not an echo chamber seeking applause. You have a right to disagree with an alternative opinion, but not through public lynching or mob action, which is always the weapon of the weak who emphasize strength over ideas.
Bagudu Mohammed is the founder of Alternative Perspectives, a widely read commentary platform on social media. It offers evidence-based analysis and real-life insights as a credible alternative to groupthink, convenient narratives, and echo chambers. The platform explores a wide range of issues, including politics, society, relationships, governance, and contemporary trends.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
