Nafiu Bala: Playing Friendly Competition In A Game With One Prize For The Winner
By Bagudu Mohammed
Amid the controversy over the court judgment affecting David Mark’s leadership of the ADC, the validity of actions taken under him, including the emergence of Atiku Abubakar, and allegations about the Sokoto State Government’s actions against the opposition during a presidential campaign flag-off, fresh accusations have been directed at the ruling party. The argument is that opponents should not be treated as enemies of the state but respected as legitimate competitors.
Friendly competition is presented as the foundation of democratic leadership recruitment. It is a beautiful moral proposition, but how realistic is it? Can two people genuinely laugh together, wish each other well and celebrate each other’s prospects when they are competing for the same prize, one that only one of them can win? Can a contestant sincerely hope his opponent succeeds when his own victory may depend on the other’s mistakes and weaknesses? That uncomfortable reality is what I intend to explore.
To make politics relatable, I often use the metaphors of courtship, romance and marriage. They offer fascinating illustrations of ambition, rivalry, strategy and the lengths people go to outdo one another without necessarily crossing legitimate boundaries.
A man once told me how he lost a woman he genuinely wanted to marry. His rival used material advantage and strategic distance to dwarf him. Years later, circumstances turned. The rival’s fortunes declined, and the marriage reportedly struggled, including the couple’s inability to have a child after five years.
By coincidence, the woman, Zainab, met Musa again, the man she had left behind. When she disclosed that she had no child, Musa reacted with shocking boldness, that fertility would never have been his problem.
Within months, the marriage ended, Zainab married Musa, and they reportedly welcomed twins within nine months. Whether you find Musa’s remark amusing, insensitive or arrogant, the story proves one point. The circumstances that determine victory in one season can change dramatically in another. The disadvantaged today can become the preferred choice tomorrow.
Another account came from my friend Bashir, who had exhausted every approach to persuade a woman to accept his proposal as a second wife. Defeated, he begged her to tell him the single reason she would never consider him. Her answer was simple, he was already married with children. Bashir went silent, then asked a brilliant question. Was it not an advantage to marry a man who had already proved he could sustain a marriage and have children? What if she married another man and discovered he could not give her children? She became thoughtful, and within two weeks, they were engaged. Bashir had turned his greatest disadvantage into a selling point.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky call this framing, that decisions change depending on how information is presented, even when the facts remain the same. In politics, an opposition candidate turns an incumbent’s long stay in office into an argument for change, while the incumbent presents the same experience as proof of stability.
These stories answer the central question. Why should we expect political competitors to behave like friends when their contest rewards strategy, calculation and exploitation of opportunity? In a normal market, competing businesses can coexist. But in a presidential election, a football final or a marriage contest, the prize is exclusive. You cannot both marry the same woman, lift the same trophy or occupy the same office.
Robert Dahl captured this when he described politics as who gets what, when and how. Game theory calls it zero-sum competition, where one man’s gain is another’s loss.
The stakes also matter. In marriage, the outcome determines companionship and family. In football, it means trophies, money and survival. In Nigerian politics, losing may mean losing power, influence, appointments and resources. Expecting competitors to be emotionally invested in each other’s success asks too much of human nature.
There is also the audience factor. In courtship, the woman and her family are watching. In football, supporters and officials are judging. In politics, voters, media and stakeholders are evaluating.
Erving Goffman, in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, explains how people manage impressions and perform roles before different audiences. Politicians must project competence while exposing opponents’ weaknesses without looking desperate or intolerant.
This is where people like Nafiu Bala become interesting. In a contest of rival ambitions and grievances, such a person can become strategically significant, not because of numerical strength, but because he complicates an opponent’s calculations.
In politics, as in relationships, the person who appears to have little to offer may become the very person everyone needs to win over. The lesson, however, is not that every tactic is acceptable. There is a difference between outsmarting an opponent and destroying the rules that make competition possible.
A suitor may legitimately improve his chances through patience, persuasion and character. A football manager may use defensive organisation and unexpected formations. A party may exploit its opponent’s divisions, challenge decisions in court or build alliances with dissatisfied members.
The danger begins when competition degenerates into intimidation, violence, manipulation, misinformation or abuse of state institutions. That is why the referee matters. In marriage, conscience should guide conduct. In football, the laws and officials must protect fair play. In politics, the Constitution, electoral laws, INEC and the courts must set the boundaries.
Therefore, the demand for friendly competition should not be confused with an expectation that opponents must become friends or surrender every advantage. Democracy requires something more practical. The ruling party and opposition do not have to like one another. They only have to recognise that neither owns the country, that power is temporary, and that the right to challenge an incumbent is as legitimate as the right to seek re-election.
The real test of maturity is not how warmly competitors embrace during a campaign, but how faithfully they respect the rules when the contest becomes uncomfortable.
Nafiu Bala, like many others in strategically valuable positions, may become decisive in a contest of bigger players. We should stop expecting competitors to behave like people with no interest in winning. What we should demand is that they remain decent enough to respect the rules, restrained enough to recognise the rights of others, and mature enough to accept that losing one contest does not mean losing the right to compete again.
In a democracy, the prize may be exclusive, but the country belongs to everyone.
Bagudu Mohammed is the founder of Alternative Perspectives, a widely read commentary platform on social media, and writes a weekly newspaper column published every Monday on the back page of Peoples Daily.Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
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