By Okoi Obono-Obla
The leader of the G100 political pressure group, Salihu Lukman, has himself admitted that persuading opposition presidential candidates, including Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, to work together ahead of the 2027 general election is a difficult task.
If that is the case, why is the G100 still insisting on convening an opposition summit on 18th August 2026? It is as clear as crystal that the planned summit will be nothing more than a merry-go-round — at best, a jamboree where Nigerians will be bored with meaningless speeches, self-righteous tantrums and recycled communiqués.
The reason is not far to seek. The political gladiators in the fractious ADC and the court-registered NDC are men of vaulting ambition, and one of them in particular appears to have been bewitched by modern-day marabouts. Like Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, they have whispered into his ear a prophecy of inevitable kingship.
We have seen this scene before. In **Act 1, Scene 3 of Macbeth***, on a blasted heath, three witches accost Macbeth and Banquo with an intoxicating prophecy: *”All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth! That shalt be king hereafter!”
In that instant, ambition is inflamed. The prophecy does not create the ambition; it validates it. And with an equally ambitious Lady Macbeth urging him on — “Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?” — Macbeth resolves to contrive treacherous and macabre plots to hasten what he believes fate has already ordained.
That is precisely the tragedy of the opposition today. A leading contender, having been told by his marabouts that Aso Rock is his destiny, now sees any call for unity, for sacrifice, for a united front, as a distraction from his divinely scripted coronation.
But Shakespeare does not leave us on the heath. He shows us the hollowness of such prophecies in Act 5, Scene 5. The edifice collapses. Birnam Wood does come to Dunsinane. Macbeth learns that Macduff was “from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d.” And upon hearing of Lady Macbeth’s death, the tyrant, now stripped of all illusions, delivers the most desolate verdict on hollow ambition ever written:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day… Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
Conclusion: That will be the fate of the G100 summit. Without realism, humility and a willingness to subordinate personal ambition to collective interest, it cannot produce unity. It will be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing — a tale told by political marabouts, whose prophecy, like that of the witches, was doomed from the outset because it equated personal desire with national destiny.
